Special to WorldTribune.com
“The prospects are bright, but the road has twists and turns”.
These are the words of Mao Zedong, but they could have belonged to Barack Obama. Unfortunately, “twists and turns” will be so numerous, that not many will manage to see the “bright prospects”.
Obama believes that the agreement with Iran is a unique opportunity to limit the escalation of war in the Middle East.
In reality, having created a “New Middle East”, where Iranian ayatollahs play the role of the hegemon and covert ally of America, he not only threw dynamite into an already raging fire, but provoked a chain reaction of uncontrollable explosions thousands of kilometers far from the region.
Consequences of the deal with Iran will be ominous, and not only to the Middle East: the West will have to deal not only with the ayatollahs, but with a rival incomparably more powerful and uncontrollable than the ayatollahs — Russia.
At first glance, the conflict between the West and Moscow has nothing to do with the Iran’s deal. But only at first glance.
It is not clear what exactly prompted Obama to bet on Iran, betraying American strategic allies — Israel and Saudi Arabia, and it’s also past all understanding why he would be engaged in political manipulations in the backyard of Russia — Ukraine.
Due to ignorance, mediocrity and conceit, Obama’s administration encroached on existential interests of Moscow, and the response was decisive and immediate: the occupation of the Crimea and a part of the Eastern Ukraine, the rise of imperial ambitions and anti-American hysteria.
Retaliatory sanctions have become painful to Moscow, but what is much more dangerous for Russians and Putin is the fall of oil prices — the main source of income and power of Russia.
At this point, Obama decides to lift the sanctions against Iran. Russia was against lifting the sanctions, realizing that the ejection of Iran’s oil to the global market would immediately lead to a drop of oil prices.
Moscow was forced to support the deal, so as not to obstruct its ally, but the collapse of oil prices coupled with the sanctions could have quite dangerous consequences for Kremlin.
The economy is stuck, life becomes more expensive, and rising prices have already affected the standard of living. The price of some basic goods has risen by about 50 percent in early 2015.
Besides, the appeasement of Iran allows USA and EU to switch their full attention to Ukraine. This doesn’t catch up with Kremlin’s plans. Moscow must return oil prices to an acceptable level and distract the West from the conflict in the Eastern Europe.
How? The only way is to provoke a new outburst of violence in the Middle East. The stronger the fire is, the higher oil price rises, and the more unstable the global economy becomes.
The more the West is engaged in the Middle East, the less strength and desire it possesses to confront Russia for the post-Soviet space so vital for Kremlin — from the Baltics, Ukraine and Moldova to the Caucasus; and the easier it will be to subjugate the Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The West has teased the bear by its clumsy, inept policy, and wounded bear is a beast that will never allow playing games with it.
Iran, from the point of view of Kremlin, should and could pour fuel to the fire in the Middle East, and this coincides with the interests of Iran itself. The window of opportunities opened before Tehran is unique, but short-term – the next USA president perhaps will reject the deal and maybe will try to return to America its place in the world.
Iran cannot afford the luxury of waiting – it must act without a delay.
The aims of the two states are the same. All Moscow needs is to support Iranians diplomatically, provide them with modern weapons, and free their hands giving them a shield against the attacks from outside. Such shield will be an advanced version of S-300 that deprives Israel and Arab states of their possibility to attack Teheran. Iran, in its turn, with the tacit approval of Moscow, can transfer S-300 to its main ally — Hizbullah with its 50,000 missiles.
Hizbullah has been weakened by “jihadists”, but another round of the successful war with Israel raises the prestige of this group in the Arab world and will explode the Middle East. Iran now tries to transfer modern Russian weapon to Hizbullah, like the anti-ship cruise missile “Yakhont” and medium range surface-to-air missile “Pantsir-S1”. Having S-300 in place, Hizbullah will not only cause considerable damage to Israel, but will create a “smoke screen”, under which Iranians will feel free to destabilize pro-Western Gulf monarchies with their Shiite minorities.
Yemeni rebels have already used Soviet missiles “OTR-21 Tochka”, apparently obtained from Iran, having killed 60 servicemen from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. An escalation of the conflicts in the whole Middle East will provoke a rise of oil price, which works in favor of Russia.
The current chaos in Europe caused by crowds of refugees was hardly left unnoticed in Tehran and Moscow.
The new wave of refugees from Lebanon (there are about 1.5 million Syrian refugees here) will paralyze Europe, and this is exactly what the both states wish. Panic-stricken Europeans would no longer care about the Russian claims. Oil prices would rise, and the threat from Moscow would be dissolved in the face of hordes from the East.
For the Kremlin such progression of events is not just a preferable option. It is a matter of life and death. So far Putin has achieved the peak of his popularity, but the steady decline of prices for “black gold” and prolonged sanctions act like a noose around his neck.
In Russia, unfortunate czars never retired “with honors”. They were sent to obscurity, as it happened to Peter III and Khrushchev, or murdered in the course of palace coups, like Paul I, and revolutions, like Nicholas II. Hardly probable that such an outcome satisfies Putin.
He has become the ruler returning Russia its glory, power and primordial lands, and he must continue this mission, whether he wants to do it or not.
However, the idea of the “Third Rome”, so popular in Russia today, and the growing power of Moscow against the backdrop of Europe plunging into anarchy cannot remain without a response from the U.S.
This means the conflict, and this conflict will develop according to its own laws beyond the power of Obama.
Obama opened “Pandora’s box” with his Iran deal, and repercussions will be gloomy for the West — naive, and short-sighted.
American voters reap what they sowed: Obama’s policies unleash not only Iran but . . . Moscow added by World Tribune on
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