Armand Chouet, lansinginstitute.org Director General
The killing of General Soleimani in Iraq brought the question of a likely war with Iran to the fore, intensifying tension between Democrats and Republicans on the eve of the presidential election. However, amid fierce debate and accusations, in «The tail is wagging the dog» sequel style, Washington ignored the fact that Russia could take advantage of the crisis with Iran.
The Kremlin perceives the incident in Baghdad as an opportunity to weaken the United States and seize the moment to attain its interests in various regions of the world. Russia sees the Iranian crisis as an opportunity to repeat Vietnam, but on a much larger scale and with more evils for America.
The Kremlin likes historical analogies and implements them in modern Russian politics.
There is a good chance that information on Soleimani’s movement was passed to the Pentagon just by Moscow’s behest. There were all motives, opportunities and interests for that.
Everyone was overwhelmes by the election campaign, having forgotten about the existence of artful enemies, more powerful than Iran. Ever since the Cold War, Russia has been living in the paradigm of constant conflict with the United States. Before its eyes, America is the enemy that unites the population, distracts from country’s internal problems and rallies around authoritarian leadership.
Iran is Russia’s strategic partner today, providing a firm base in the Middle East, ensuring Russia’s presence in Syria, and conducting the Kremlin in the Shiite world. Tehran enjoys the intelligence support of Russia, and the Kremlin is in a certain position to influence Iran’s geopolitical decisions. Therefore, the biggest mistake today may be to ignore the Russian factor and the Kremlin’s threat in the impending conflict with Iran. This threat should be counteracted with symmetrical proxy measures tactics of a non-conventional response to threats. Today it’s time to forget about the armed response measures when it comes to strategic threats, not only such as Russia and China, but also Iran and North Korea.
Russia is not afraid of the force used against it. Self-sacrifice underlies Russia’s political, social, and religious ideology. But the Russians hold up the economic blow badly in peacetime. They depend on maintaining the living standards at the level necessary for them. The political elites are rubbish at that. Therefore, economic pressure on the Kremlin is the best way for the democratic world to confront the authoritarian regimes.
