NPR’s Juana Summers talks with Sciences Po professor and author Nicole Grajewski Russia and IranRegarding Russia’s reported support for Iran’s military.
Juana Summers, Host:
If my enemy’s enemy is my friend, Iran and Russia – well, they’re at least friendly. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
(Soundbite from the TV show, “Meet the Press”)
Abbas Araghi: Well, military cooperation between Iran and Russia is nothing new. It’s not a secret. It has been and still is and will continue to be.
SUMMERS: He avoided specific questions, although, as the Washington Post reported last week, U.S. officials believe Russia is sharing U.S. troop locations in the Middle East with Iran. NPR also confirmed that report. Of course, Russia is also trying to manage its own war in Ukraine. Russian President Putin and US President Trump spoke for about an hour on Monday and about Iran. For more on all this, we reached out to Nicole Grazewski from the Center for International Studies Sciences Po in Paris. Welcome to the program.
Nicole Grajewski: Thanks so much for having me.
SUMMERS: Now, Nicole, I know you were mentioned in the Post’s report. I want to start with this. How impactful is Russian aid to Iran here?
GRAJEWSKI: In terms of the level of impact of this cooperation, you have to look at it in the context of Iran, which, you know, has space-based capabilities and the ability to gather information about Iran’s intelligence and troop movements, which are sorely lacking. Iran has no military-grade satellites. This helps Iranian aiming and accuracy. So it gives some jump in Iranian existing tools, but it is not a fundamental game changer in terms of Iranian performance. I’d say it’s more enabling than anything else.
Summers: Strategically, what does Russia get out of this? How did they benefit from helping Iran?
Grajewski: It’s hard to say what kind of straightforward quid pro quos there is. But Iran, as you know, presents a challenging opportunity for Russia and actually increases uncertainty for the US in other areas. And it distracts to some extent from the war in Ukraine. So it seems that Iran is already anticipating the need for this kind of information. And rather than Russia delivering direct weapons systems, they chose this. It is a kind of culmination of their partnership, and it is in line with the way they run the state of affairs.
Summers: Pushing it a little bit, I mean, intelligence sharing is obviously less than Russia selling weapons to Iran and less than Russia actually joining the fight. And notably, Iran has supplied drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine. In your view, does it seem to you that Russia might not be willing to do anything other than share intelligence?
GRAJEWSKI: To some extent, they hesitate, because it would be a redline for the United States. This makes Russia a direct party to this war. And I think Russia wants to avoid this because of its ties to the Gulf and Israel. But, you know, I think the biggest problem here is that Russia has its own sanctions. The Russian, you know, defense industrial complex is facing the cause of the war in Ukraine. And there is the question of what Russia can offer in this short term. So there are natural limits to partnership, but there is also a kind of material constraint here.
SUMMERS: US President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone on Monday and they talked about Ukraine but also about Iran. Kremlin says Putin has called for a quick end to the Iran war. What do you make of reading that discussion – what did you hear?
Grajewski: From my understanding, it’s a pretty long conversation. It was about an hour long.
Summer: Yes.
GRAZEWSKI: And that’s a tendency that the Russians tend to do whenever there’s a flare-up with Iran – they lend their skills in mediation or their closeness or their partnership with Iran to essentially favor the United States. But what’s clear here is that Russia offers some areas where it can be helpful and helpful, and that’s partly with highly enriched uranium. And if the Iranians and the United States come to some agreement on this, the Russians may be the country that moves it out of Iran. So there are areas where Russia is structured. But this time, it seems they are using it as a bargaining chip with the United States.
SUMMER: Stepping back a bit, last year Iran and Russia announced a comprehensive strategic partnership, but thinking about it, it sounds a bit more like they’re probably situational allies. How do you see it?
GRAZEWSKI: They certainly – I mean, I wouldn’t call them allies. I call them partners. I mean, they are strategic partners, but they don’t have a defense treaty in the traditional sense. They do not have a mutual agreement that obligates either party to intervene on behalf of the other in a war. Neither of them wanted to be involved in either of their wars. And so there is no limit to that. But then if you look at the type of content of the deal, it’s – it’s a really interesting deal. It’s long enough – are there certain provisions that actually lead to greater opportunities for defense cooperation. So it gives their partnership an opportunity to become more embedded, but it’s not an alliance.
Summers: Nicole Grazewski is a professor at Sciences Po, France. His book “Russia and Iran.” Thank you very much.
Grajewski: Thank you.
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