14 February 2016By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
What happened to the copy of the Qur'an that President Putin gifted the
Supreme Leader during his visit to Tehran around four months ago?
It does not seem that calls for cooperation have been responded to as there
are conflicting reports about the promised missiles. The Iranians said that
they have been shipped but the Russians denied this without sufficient
explanation.
The S-300 missiles that Iran said that it has paid for in full (approximately
$1 billion) nine years ago when it was in straitened circumstances were due to
be delivered in 2010. Despite this, they haven't been delivered. It is said
that the reason for this was a Security Council warning against exporting
weapons. However, the international ban was lifted last year and the missiles
still haven't been delivered. It is still uncertain whether Moscow will
actually send the strategically important missiles and threaten the Gulf
states and Israel with them. A Russian source said that the date of delivery
has been postponed till the end of this year and denied that Tehran had paid
for the missiles in full. The Iranians have already threatened to sue the
Russians and will demand compensation amounting to $4 billion even though what
they paid was a quarter of this sum.
Why are the Iranians threatening their allies the Russians? Is Iran in a
position to be hostile to the Kremlin? The relationship between the two
governments is strange; they are similar in terms of their willingness to
confront the west in the region as part of their policy of using each other in
a temporary alliance. However, their interests remain different as Russian
goals are long term. As for Iran, it is trying to reconcile with the west and
is on the verge of doing so. The extreme wing within the Iranian regime
believes that reconciliation with the west will be at the expense of its
internal influence. For this reason, this wing put $8 billion on the table at
the Kremlin during the Iranian defence minister's latest visit in exchange for
buying lots of Russian weapons.
Why? Iran may think that it is able to buy the Russians with money on the one
hand and by threatening to sue them on the other as part of its new style of
managing its international relations after signing the nuclear agreement and
its reconciliation with the United States. However, if Tehran is placing its
bets on tempting Russia with money and expensive military deals, then it is
mistaken because it is competing with three governments, all of which are
richer than Iran; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.
Al Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya television. He is also the
former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in the daily newspapers
of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is a US post-graduate degree in mass
communications. He has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs. He
is currently based in Dubai.
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EsinIslam.Com
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