Book II: Russia's Web: A Global Strategy of Disruption

Part 10: Axis of Resentment - Iran

Chapter 34: Iran I: A Legacy of Mistrust, A Future of Malice

In his garden in Isfahan, the old diplomat remembers. As a young man in the foreign ministry of the Shah, and later of the Ayatollah, he was taught one unwavering truth: the Russians were not to be trusted. He remembers the history—the imperial wars of the 19th century, the Soviet occupation during World War II. He remembers with a still-fresh bitterness Moscow's support for Saddam Hussein during the bloody eight-year war with Iraq, a betrayal that cost a million Iranian lives. For his entire generation, Russia was the great enemy to the north, a rival empire whose godless communism was second only to the Great Satan in its menace.

But in a modern, glass-walled office in Tehran, his son, a pragmatic, mid-level officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sees the world differently. He sees a world where the primary, existential enemy is the United States, its sanctions, and its military bases that encircle his country. The old mistrust of Russia is a luxury he cannot afford. In Moscow, he sees not a rival, but the only great power willing to sell his country fighter jets, to veto punitive UN resolutions, and to stand with him against the same great enemy. The garden of old grudges has been paved over by a cold, hard highway of shared resentment.

The Discourse 34: The Making of an Alliance

34.1 From Historical Rivalry to a Partnership of Convenience
The modern Russo-Iranian axis is not a natural alliance of civilizations; it is a pragmatic, anti-American partnership of convenience built upon a long and bitter history of rivalry. For centuries, Imperial Russia and Persia were geopolitical competitors. In the 20th century, the officially atheist Soviet Union was viewed with deep suspicion by the Islamic Republic and actively supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the devastating Iran-Iraq War. [CITATION 1] This legacy of mistrust means the current alignment is not built on shared values or trust, but on a cold, transactional calculation of shared strategic interests.

34.2 The Post-Soviet Thaw: A Common Foe
The relationship began to thaw after the collapse of the Soviet Union, driven by shared concerns. The Chechen Wars of the 1990s saw both Moscow and Tehran finding a common, if uneasy, cause in fighting radical Sunni jihadism, a threat they would later confront together in Syria. [CITATION 2] This alignment was cemented through Russian arms sales and, most importantly, through Russia's indispensable role in building Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, becoming the primary international partner for a program the West sought to isolate and destroy. [CITATION 3]

34.3 Russia's Nuclear Double Game
Throughout the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal (the JCPOA), Russia played a masterful double game. To the West, it positioned itself as a responsible stakeholder and a constructive partner, helping to bring Iran to the table. [CITATION 4] To Tehran, however, it acted as a guarantor, consistently shielding Iran from the most crippling sanctions, watering down resolutions at the UN, and ensuring that any deal would not permanently dismantle Iran's core nuclear infrastructure. This performance cemented Russia's status as Iran's essential great-power patron, the one actor it could count on when faced with overwhelming Western pressure. It was this relationship, solidified over the nuclear issue, that would form the basis of their future military alliance.

References

1. Posulyuk, Ambassador Vladimir. "Russian-Iranian Relations." Lecture at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May 14, 1996. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/russian-iranian-relations

2. Trenin, Dmitri. "Russia in the Middle East: Moscow's Objectives, Priorities, and Policy Drivers." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2016. https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/04/05/russia-in-middle-east-moscow-s-objectives-priorities-and-policy-drivers-pub-63244

3. Vatanka, Alex. "Iran's Nuclear Program and the Russian Connection." Middle East Institute, October 26, 2021. https://www.mei.edu/publications/irans-nuclear-program-and-russian-connection

4. Katz, Mark N. "Will Russia Cooperate on Iran?" The Atlantic Council, July 9, 2015. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iraninsight/will-russia-cooperate-on-iran/