Iran and Russia, scorpions in a bottle
asia times/pepe escobar
23-Jul-2009 (2 comments)

Things get curiouser and curiouser in the Iranian wonderland. Imagine what happened last week during Friday prayers in Tehran, personally conducted by former president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, aka "The Shark", Iran's wealthiest man, who made his fortune partly because of Irangate - the 1980s' secret weapons contracts with Israel and the US.
,,,During prayers, partisans of the hegemonic faction yelled the usual Death to America!" - while the pragmatic conservatives came up, for the first time, with "Death to Russia!" and "Death to China!" Oops. Unlike the United States and Western Europe, both Russia and China almost instantly accepted the contested presidential re-election of Ahmadinejad. Could they then be portrayed as enemies of Iran? Or have pragmatic conservatives not been informed that obsessed-by-Eurasia Zbig Brzezinksi - who has US President Barack Obama's undivided attention - has been preaching since the 1990s that it is essential to break up the Tehran-Moscow-Beijing axis and torpedo the >>>

rosie is roxy is roshan

Marg bar...

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Thu Jul 23, 2009 07:27 AM PDT

The article just came out today and it is the first of a two part series by Escobar called 'New Great Game Revisited'. He had covered the uprising extensively in June largely from an Iranian internal perspective.

//iranian.com/main/news/2009/06/16/struggle-within-iranian-elite

//iranian.com/main/news/2009/06/17/meaning-tehran-spring

//warincontext.org/2009/06/30/pepe-escobar-requiem-for-a-revolution/

Now he's back and I have a feeling that by the time Part II is done, this series is gonna cover a loooootta bases. In Eurasia and beyond.



Balatarin
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Ostaad

Great article by Pepe as usual, but...

by Ostaad on Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:37 AM PDT

I don't agree with his assessment of Russia's relations with Iran as "opportunistic". Relations among nations invariably contain some opportunistic components, but that cannot explain the deep rooted relations between the two countries. These relationships actually blossomed during the Shah. Then just like now, one of Iranian's national aspirations and dreams was to have a steel mill plan or "zobeh aahan". Having a zobeh aahan was considered THE apex of technical and industrial achievement for the nation. Iranians were practically content to go hungry but have a zobeh aahan. The US, as usual, lectured the Iranians they didn't need one of those messy things, and instead "advised" the Shah to concentrate on growing sugar beets, avocados and artichokes as "cash crops". Guess who stepped in with an offer the Shah could not refuse and boosted the Iranians' pride sky high? The Russians "gave" Iran the steel mill now operational in Esfehaan and supplied the Army with jeeps and trucks in exchange for Iranian gas which was being burned due to lack of usage and markets. This was mid 70's. The Russians went on building grain silos and many other facilities which enabled Iran to prevent wasting its food supplies by lack of proper storage facilities.

It is an open secret that Russia's footprint in Iranian economic landscape is huge and enduring. The mere fact that Russian is building Iran's first nuclear power plans, is the continuation of Russia's deep relations with Iran. Of course Russia has been rewarded very handsomely too since none of this has been for free.

On the other hand the US has practically no footprint in Iran's economic landscape. The US concentrated on selling arms to Iran, but there are NO factories nor any other economic establishments of national stature built by the US in Iran. The Arak Aluminum and John Deer Tractor plant in Arak were joint ventures whose national significance was non-existant comparing to Esfahaan's Steel Mill.

The "marg bar russieh" slogan, in my opinion, was designed as reminder to the "Westernizers" in Russia to be more careful in their zeal to consider down grading Russo-Iranian relationships to cozy up to the West.

In summary, the authors assertion, "The key of this Moscow-Tehran axis is opportunism -
opposition to US hegemonic designs. Is Obama - via his "unclenched fist" policy
- wily enough to try to turn this all upside down; or will he be forced by the
Israel lobby and the industrial-military complex to finally strike a regime now
universally despised all over the West?" I agree Obama will do his level best to turn this relationship upside down. But with what? Has anyone seen any carrots offered to Iran by the US the even come close to the huge size of the "carrots cakes" Russia has been giving Iran, in exchange for hard cash of course? On the other hand I don't agree with the author that Russo-Iranian axis is based on opportunism. Russia has vital geopolitical and economic interests in keeping its southern neighbor firmly on its side and protected against you-know-who regardless of who is in charge in Iran. Ironically that's what Obama proclaimed before the Iranian "election". His ears must have been ringing then.

Lifting the counter-productive sanctions would be a good start if the Israel lobby and its allies in the congress allow it.


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