Russia's embrace strengthens Iran

Tehran has taunted United States President Donald Trump the ‘Persian’ way. Without resorting to expletives, belligerent rhetoric, or grandstanding, it made the point that the other guy is a buffoon. Even German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noticed, attributing it to a colossal underestimation of Iran’s comprehensive national power, combined with the absence of an exit strategy. Merz said Iran smartly outmanoeuvred Trump.

That said, the US-Iranian diplomatic tango is not really at a dead end. There are new stirrings. Thus, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a closet Zionist himself, acknowledges that at least half of Iran’s ‘missile capability’ remains intact; Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is alive; factionalism is endemic to Shia politics; and Iran has an upper hand as the Strait of Hormuz “is basically the equivalent of an economic nuclear weapon”.

A lot is happening below the radar. The first public statement after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at St Petersburg on April 27 has come not from Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (who was present at the meeting) but from Defence Minister Andrey Belousov, while on a visit to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to attend the SCO’s defence ministers meeting where he met his Iranian counterpart Brigadier-General Talaei-Nik Reza.

The Tass reported Belousov as saying: “We (Russia) support Iran's sovereignty and territorial integrity. I wish the brotherly Iranian people and its armed forces resilience and courage in overcoming all threats facing the country. We are ready to do everything possible to resolve this situation.” The report added that Belousov “expressed confidence that Moscow and Tehran, as before, will support each other under any development of the situation.”

Day by day, Russia’s shadows are lengthening. The Kremlin readout of the meeting between Putin and Araghchi highlighted that there is direct contact at the highest level of leadership between Putin and Khamenei, and that “Russia, just like Iran, intends to maintain our strategic relations.”

Putin was noticeably effusive in praising “how courageously and heroically the Iranian people are fighting for their independence and sovereignty” while expressing hope that “relying on this courage and determination for independence, the Iranian people, under the leadership of their new leader, will go through this difficult period of trials and that peace will come.”

Putin concluded that “…we will do everything that meets your interests and the interests of all peoples in the region in order to ensure that peace is achieved as quickly as possible.” These are indeed exceptionally warm words of solidarity with an eye on the US and Israel.

It is hugely significant that Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia’s Main Directorate of the General Staff, commonly known in the West by its Cold War abbreviation GRU, attended the meeting at St Petersburg alongside Lavrov and presidential foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.

The GRU also has a separate so-called Cosmic Intelligence Directorate responsible for space-based intelligence collection. Its highly sensitive satellite reconnaissance programme is shrouded in secrecy, but reports appeared recently that Russia has been sharing crucial intelligence data in real time with the IRGC. Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied such reports.

Russian military experts argue that the current ‘no peace, no war’ phase cannot last long, and another spiral of escalation may be much more brutal and wider. Adlan Margoyev, an expert on Iranian affairs and a researcher at the Institute of International Studies at the Russian Foreign Ministry's Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) has been quoted as saying that the current open-ended ceasefire in the absence of a peace treaty "looks like extra time to the United States to think which of its objectives are realistic and whether it is in its interests to pay a high economic and political price.”

Suffice it to say, the peace plan proposed by Tehran last weekend is in three stages: the first phase will focus on ending the war and obtaining guarantees that military operations against Iran and Lebanon will not resume. Tehran insists that "no other issues will be discussed at this stage.”

The second phase will involve discussions, in co-ordination with the Omani side, on the management of the Strait of Hormuz after the end of the war. (Araghchi paid a working visit to Oman before proceeding to St Petersburg via Islamabad, where he had a one-on-one with COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir.) The third phase, according to Iran’s proposal, will address Tehran’s nuclear programme. Trump has reacted to the proposal without rejecting it off-hand. Russian reports indicate that intense contacts are going on.

The million-dollar question is as regards Trump’s focus on the war when the tectonic plates are shifting in US politics, as the latest failed assassination attempt on him testifies. Washington believed that time was on its side, while Tehran was sure of its endurance level — recipe for a stalemate. But that is no longer so.

Paradoxically, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz leaks like a sieve; a growing number of ships are evading the blockade. According to Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a senior political figure and member of the Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy of the Majlis in Tehran, the legislative work on the legal and international aspects of the Strait of Hormuz Security Plan is complete and will be “adopted as a binding law immediately after the opening of parliament and sent to the government for implementation.”

Boroujerdi disclosed that the Central Bank of Iran has opened four special accounts in Iranian rials, yuan, US dollar, and euro to collect fees for the passage through the strait, but after the introduction of the digital currency infrastructure, it will be mandatory to make payments in rials.

The pressure will be on the US, given the challenge to the petrodollar recycling regime. (The United Arab Emirates warned Washington that it may use the yuan.) Accordingly, Trump green-lighted a currency swap arrangement with the Persian Gulf countries, which are some of the world’s richest countries! The dynamics of the strife in the Strait of Hormuz are no longer confined to cascading oil prices; it is stealthily approaching international finances. Another war cannot resolve it.

M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.