Iran’s Russia Problem – The Atlantic

Iran’s new president and foreign minister could hardly be more different in behavior. President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks informally, often goes off script and likes to joke. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a career diplomat who earned his doctorate in Britain, chooses his words with meticulous precision. But the two men have said the same thing about the direction they want Iran’s foreign policy to take.

The pitch goes something like this: We want to make amends with the United States and Europe so that we can have sanctions lifted on our economy. But we will not sacrifice our relationships with Russia and China, the partners who have supported us. And we will not give up our support for the Axis of Resistance, the collection of Arab anti-Israel militias that plague the West and many regional Arab countries.

In his first press conference as president on Monday, Pezeshkian said bluntly: “These guys sanctioned us,” he said, referring to the West. “These guys helped us,” referring to Russia and China. But he also promised a peaceful approach to the West, even suggesting that the United States and Iran could be “brothers.” A few days earlier, Araghchi had said in a television interview: “We are approaching relations with Europe from a new angle and a new perspective,” but “our priority is elsewhere.”

This is a view fraught with contradictions. Pezeshkian has been clear (as has his boss, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) that Tehran’s priority is to solve its dire economic problems. To do that, it must increase foreign investment and remove Iran from the Financial Action Task Force’s blacklist, a Paris-based organization that works to combat money laundering. And these things won’t happen unless Iran negotiates with Western powers over its nuclear program, its support for the Axis powers, and its arming of Russia in its war in Ukraine. Simply put, if Iran is to achieve its domestic priorities, the West must become its foreign policy priority.

Pezeshkian’s rise to the presidency likely raised alarm bells in Moscow, since the diplomats around him are known to be skeptical of Iran’s ties to Moscow and Beijing. Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister who is now vice president for strategic affairs, has been openly critical of those who tie Iran too closely to Russia, saying the relationship limits Tehran’s options. His most notable achievement as Iran’s top diplomat was the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and five other world powers, which President Donald Trump withdrew from three years later. Zarif’s No. 2 in the talks that led to that agreement was Araghchi. Another member of that negotiating team is now Araghchi’s No. 2. A fourth heads the parliamentary nuclear subcommittee.

In short, Iran’s Western-leaning faction is back in the saddle. Of course, none of these people are the ones making decisions; Khamenei is. But the fact that the supreme leader allowed Pezeshkian to run for president and win in the first place suggests that he also sees the need to engage with the West.

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What that means for Moscow is less certain. The new administration has made loud protestations about friendship with Russia, but these appear partly intended to reassure a nervous Vladimir Putin and partly to play hard to get with the West. Pezeshkian has also tried to appease the Kremlin by appointing Mehdi Sanayi, a former ambassador to Russia, as deputy chief of staff. Sanayi speaks fluent Russian and holds a doctorate from the country’s prestigious Academy of Sciences, making him a rarity among Iranian officials, who are far more likely to speak English and hold European or American degrees.

But within the power structure, critics of the Iran-Russia relationship appear to have found new courage since the new administration came to power. Some point out that elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have in recent years promoted a Russia-centric policy called “Look East” — and then profited enormously from military deals with China and Russia. “Russia is playing Iran like a playing card, and supporting Russia serves no national interest and only benefits Iranian Russophiles,” Afshar Soleimani, a former ambassador to Baku, said in a recent interview. “I don’t blame Russia. It’s our fault that we’re being fooled by it.”

Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a former head of Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy committee, is perhaps the biggest Russia skeptic in Iran. He recently challenged the idea that Russia and China should be thanked for trading with Iran despite Western sanctions, saying: “They were not ‘our friend in difficult times’ as some said. They abused us. If we have a rational foreign policy, we should not put ourselves in a situation where we need countries like China and Russia permanently.” Zarif and Pezeshkian expressed similar ideas during the campaign, but Falahatpisheh went further, suggesting that Iranians who favor ties with Beijing and Moscow have a personal interest in keeping Iran under sanctions so they can profit from the murky oil trade.

Russia is not, in fact, a natural partner for Iran. It has been a bogeyman for Iranians for hundreds of years, beginning with Moscow’s colonial designs on Persia in the 18th and 19th centuries. Iranians have long viewed Russia as the greatest threat to their country’s sovereignty. And lately, Russia has given Iranians renewed cause for concern by stepping on basic security priorities that are a matter of broad national consensus.

First, Russia supported the UAE’s position on three disputed islands in the Persian Gulf in joint statements with the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Iran considers its sovereignty over these islands non-negotiable; the UAE also claims them and wants a diplomatic process to resolve the issue. But more importantly, Putin’s trip last month to the Republic of Azerbaijan, his first in six years, was a major milestone.

Relations between Baku and Tehran are fraught. The gas-rich Turkish state has close ties to Israel and has at times stoked separatist sentiments among Iranian Azerbaijanis, who make up more than 15 percent of the population and include both Khamenei and Pezeshkian. Alarmingly for Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has backed Baku’s demands for a transit corridor to connect mainland Azerbaijan with its autonomous exclave, Nakhchivan. The corridor would run along Iran’s only border with Armenia, effectively blocking it and cutting off a key access point to Europe.

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Following Lavrov’s remarks, Iran’s Foreign Ministry and several Iranian officials protested vehemently. A conservative outlet owned by the judiciary attacked the corridor as a “dream that will never be realized.” Iran’s Foreign Policy Council, an authoritative body appointed by Khamenei, has criticized the project in the past, suggesting in an article on its website that the corridor was designed by “the United States, Britain and international Zionists.”

Could these complaints give the Pezeshkian government room to reduce Iran’s dependence on Russia, and perhaps strike a deal with the West? Perhaps Iran could even use its ties to Russia as a bargaining chip, since the United States and its allies are sure to want to weaken them.

Even if Pezeshkian wants to do this, he will have to contend with the influence of the IRGC and the military, says Nicole Grajewski, the author of a forthcoming book on Iran-Russia ties and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Russians know this, she told me: “They’ve seen how every time an Iranian president came to power with the promise of better relations with the West, it was either thwarted by internal factors, like the hardliners or the IRGC, or by external events, like during the Trump administration.”

Meanwhile, she noted that despite the “real and deep tension, plus mistrust” between Iran and Russia, the military and technical relationship between the two countries has become extremely close. “Iran is now integrated into Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Grajewski pointed out, with real implications for European security.

During his televised interview, Araghchi acknowledged that the war in Ukraine had “complicated” Iran’s relations with Europe. But he called for “a new direction … based on mutual respect and dignity.” Iran was ready to listen to Europe’s security concerns if Europe listened to Iran’s, he added.

Pezeshkian was, again, more direct, promising Monday that Iran was not seeking to “export its revolution” and repeatedly pledging good-faith efforts at peace with the West and with neighbors. He even waxed philosophical. “Who knows how we found the chance to live in this galaxy, on this little blue ball called Earth,” he said. “We should enjoy this life instead of fighting all the time … We can create an Earth where everyone lives happily.”

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That will likely be the tone of Pezeshkian’s rhetoric during his visit to New York this week, both in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly and in the many meetings he plans to hold with American civil society. The talk of universal harmony is out of step with Iran’s record of repressing its own people, arming anti-Israel terror groups and supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it does signal a shift from just a year ago, when hardliner Ebrahim Raisi railed on a UN stage. It may be limited, but if you look closely, you’ll see a new opening in Tehran.