In sum, the IRDG’s brief but bold example of self-organization in the often hostile environment of the USSR congress, and the enormous publicity generated by the televised speeches of IRDG members at the first two congresses and other public meetings, had major repercussions for the democratic groups and candidates who organized themselves for the 1990 elections, and thus, also, for the development of Russian democracy. See also: ARTICLE 6 OF 1977 CONSTITUTION; CONGRESS OF PEOPLE’S DEPUTIES; POPOV, GAVRIIL KHARITONOVICH; SAKHAROV, ANDREI DMITRIEVICH; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. (2001). The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press. Urban, Michael; Igrunov, Vyacheslav; and Mitrokhin, Sergei. (1997). The Rebirth of Politics in Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
During the period of the Shah, Soviet-Iranian relations were cool, if not hostile. Memories of the 1946 Soviet occupation of Northern Iran, the activities of the Iranian Communist Party, and the increasingly close U.S.-Iranian alliance kept Moscow and Tehran diplomatically far apart, although there was a considerable amount of trade between the two countries. Following the overthrow of the Shah, Moscow initially hoped the Khomeini regime would gravitate toward the Soviet Union. However, the renewed activities of the Iranian communist party, together with Tehran’s anger at Moscow for its support of Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, kept the two countries apart until 1987, when Moscow increased its support for Iran. By 1989 Moscow had signed a major arms agreement with Tehran, and the military cooperation between the two countries continued into the post-Soviet period.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran emerged as Russia’s primary ally in the Middle East. Moscow became Iran’s most important supplier of sophisticated military equipment, including combat aircraft, tanks, and submarines, and began building a nuclear reactor for Tehran. For its part, Iran provided Moscow with important diplomatic assistance in combating the Taliban in Afghanistan and in achieving and maintaining the ceasefire in Tajikistan, and both countries sought to limit U.S. influence in Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
The close relations between Russia and Iran, which had begun in the last years of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, developed steadily under both Yeltsin and Putin, with Putin even willing to abrogate the Gore- Chernomyrdin agreement, negotiated between the United States and Russia in 1995, which would have ended Russian arms sales to Iran by 2000.
Moscow was also willing, despite U.S. objections, to aid Iran in the development of the Shihab III intermediate-range ballistic missile and to supply Iran with nuclear reactors. However, there were areas of conflict in the Russian-Iranian relationship. First, the two countries were in competition over the transportation routes for the oil and natural gas of Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Iran claimed it provided the shortest and safest route for these energy resources to the outside world, while Russia wished to control the energy export routes of the states of the former Soviet Union, believing that these routes lay in the Russian sphere of influence. Second, by early 2001 Russia and Iran had come into conflict over the development of the energy resources of the Caspian Sea. Russia sided with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in their call for the development of their national sectors of the Caspian Sea, while Iran demanded either joint development of the Caspian Sea or a full 20 percent of the Caspian for itself. A third problem lay on the Russian side. Throughout the 1990s the conservative clerical regime in Iran became increasingly unpopular, and while it held the levers of power (army, police, and judiciary), the election of the Reformist Mohammed Khatami as Iran’s President in 1997 (and his overwhelming reelection in 2001), along with the election in 2000 of a reformist Parliament (albeit one with limited power), led some in the Russian leadership to fear a possible Iranian-American rapprochement, which would have limited Russian
IRAQ, RELATIONS WITH
influence in Iran. The possibilities of economic cooperation between the United States and Iran dwarfed those of Russia and Iran, particularly because both Russia and Iran throughout the 1990s encountered severe economic problems. Fortunately for Moscow, the conservative counterattack against both Khatami and the reformist Parliament at least temporarily prevented the rapprochement, as did President George W. Bush’s labeling of Iran as part of the “axis of evil” in January 2002. On the other hand, Russian-Iranian relations were challenged by the new focus of cooperation between Russia and the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and by Russia’s acquiescence in the establishment of U.S. bases in central Asia.
In sum, throughout the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century, Russia and Iran were close economic, military, and diplomatic allies. However, it was unclear how long that alliance would remain strong. See also: IRAQ, RELATIONS WITH; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Freedman, Robert O. (2001). Russian Policy Toward the Middle East Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge for Putin (The Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, no. 33). Seattle: Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Nizamedden, Talal. (1999). Russia and the Middle East. New York: St. Martin’s. Rumer, Eugene. (2000). Dangerous Drift: Russia’s Middle East Policy. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Shaffer, Brenda. (2001). Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Vassiliev, Alexei. (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messiasism to Pragmatism. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press.
Following the signing of its Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1972, Iraq became Moscow’s primary ally in the Arab world. The warm Soviet-Iraqi relationship came to an end, however, in 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, thereby splitting the Arab world and creating serious problems for Moscow’s efforts to create anti-imperialist Arab unity. During the Iran-Iraq war Moscow switched back and forth between Iran and Iraq, but by the end of the war, in 1988, Gorbachev’s new thinking in world affairs had come into effect, and the United States and USSR had begun to cooperate in the Middle East. That cooperation reached its peak when the United States and USSR cooperated against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Yeltsin’s Russia inherited a very mixed relationship with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Although Iraq had been a major purchaser of Soviet arms, Saddam’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990 had greatly complicated Soviet foreign policy in the Middle East and led to the erosion of Moscow’s influence in the region. At the beginning of his period of rule as Russia’s President, Boris Yeltsin adopted an anti- Iraqi position and even contributed several ships to aid the United States in enforcing the anti-Iraqi naval blockade to prevent contraband from reaching Iraq.
However, beginning in 1993 when Yeltsin came under attack from the increasingly powerful parliamentary opposition, he began to improve relations with Iraq, both to gain popularity in parliament and to demonstrate he was not a lackey of the United States. Thus Yeltsin began to criticize the periodic U.S. bombings of Iraq, even when it was in retaliation for the assassination attempt against former President George Bush.
By 1996, when Yevgeny Primakov became Russia’s Foreign Minister, Russia had three major objectives in Iraq. The first was to regain the more than seven billion dollars in debts that Iraq owed the former Soviet Union. The second was to acquire business for Russian companies, especially its oil companies. The third objective by 1996 was to enhance Russia’s international prestige by opposing what Moscow claimed was Washington’s efforts to create an American-dominated unipolar world.
Moscow, however, ran into problems with its Iraqi policy in 1997 and 1998 when U.S.-Iraqi tension escalated over Saddam Hussein’s efforts to interfere with U.N. weapons inspections. While Russian diplomacy helped avert U.S. attacks in November 1997, February 1998, and November 1998, Moscow, despite a great deal of bluster, was unIRON CURTAIN able to prevent a joint U.S.-British attack against suspected weapons sites in December 1998.
Following the attack, Moscow sought a new U.N. weapons inspection system, and when Putin became Prime Minister in 1999, Russia succeeded in pushing through the U.N. Security Council the UNMOVIC inspection system to replace the UNSCOP inspection system. Unfortunately for Moscow, which, under Iraqi pressure, abstained on the vote, Iraq refused to accept the new system, which linked Iraqi compliance with the inspectors with the temporary
