Editorial: Will Putin change the strategic map?
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is in Iran and the world is tense with expectations of a change in the regional strategic map. Will that really happen? Mr Putin has challenged the West in recent months on a number of counts, hopeful of giving a head of steam to Russian nationalism, and is due to become prime minister of Russia after elections in March 2008 after having exhausted the constitutional limit of two terms as president. He has visited Saudi Arabia and expanded relations with the Gulf Arabs and is very articulate in his defence of Irans right to explore nuclear development in the face of opposition from the United States and Europe.
The Iranians may not overtly express great enthusiasm about the visit, but they want him to do more practical things to back his support of Irans nuclear programme, like finishing the Bushehr nuclear plant which it has left incomplete. They will welcome his very overt opposition to an American invasion of Iran, a policy that Russia follows in lockstep with the neighbours of Iran. This, in fact, will be the central theme of the visit. Russia will safely join the Gulf Arabs and neighbours of Iran like Pakistan and India in condemning all use of threat of war as a policy against Iran. Also, as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, Russia can greatly strengthen the Iranian resolve to buck the West, as it will be taken to stand guarantee against a UN-approved invasion under Chapter Seven or any UN-approved sanctions that are meant to bite.
The Iranians must have noted Mr Putins policy of defiance in the West. He has opposed Americas proposed installation of a limited missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland, he has recently abandoned the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty and has stood firm against the final resolution of state boundaries in the Balkans. He has shown that Europes dependence on Russian pipelines for up to 25 percent of its oil can be used by Moscow as political leverage showcasing Russias power projection towards the West after the demise of the Soviet Union that actually participated in the threat arena in Europe through its Warsaw Pact partners there.
President George Bush has afforded new space to Russia in the Middle East by committing blunders in a region where the old Soviet Union hardly had any foothold. Americas strategic allies in the region are only partially aligned to it now; indeed, there is sharp opposition to Washingtons policy among the masses of the region, which plays out in favour of Iran and all external players who would conduct a nuanced foreign policy in the Middle East. It is therefore expected that President Putin will lean on the consensus among the Arabs that Iran should not be invaded while abstaining from siding with Tehran against the Arabs who fear Iranian expansionism. The flux of strategic decision-making in the Middle East and its adjoining regions will help him steer an effective course.
Pakistan is allied to the Gulf Arabs, not because of any deliberate intent but because of the vital economic link it has with the Gulfs job market. It postures neutrality while it has been viewed in the past as a part of the Arab threat pattern against it. Yet, Pakistan has resolutely opposed in advance any invasion of Iran by the US, and has linked its future to Iran by going ahead with a gas pipeline project with it. On the other hand, India, which first entered a tacitly anti-US arrangement with Iran, China and Russia, and then entered Iran as a major investor, is now forced to give more importance to its nuclear deal with the United States and has just finished conducting military exercises with NATO in the Bay of Bengal. On the other hand, China with its economic dependency on the US and EU the two are now almost equal in their Chinese imports has trodden more carefully in the region, quietly buying up its future energy resources without laying down any permanent strategic rules for itself.
Most likely, President Putin will retain his habitual style of careful articulation on Irans nuclear programme while reaping all the public relations advantages of universal opposition to the American presence in Iraq. Back home, the fact that the Iranians will make believe that Russia is a counter-weight to America, will compel his increasingly nationalist electorate to think that Russia is once again the superpower it was as the Soviet Union. Thus the strategic map in the Middle East will be characterised by a global foreign policy dualism in the post-cold war era. In this flux, American dominance will remain but will be increasingly less clearly supported by regional neighbours still linked to the markets in the West. *
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
