"Moscow has long been cooperating with Tehran in the sphere of nuclear energy.
Russian weapons are popular among Iranian servicemen. Moreover, Iran often uses the Russian international diplomatic shelter, especially in the UN Security Council where Russia has an extremely important right to "veto", say experts at the US analytical center Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting) George Friedman and Peter Zeikhan.
The expert note that Russia’s support does not allow Washington to resist more direct Iranian actions in areas as Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Persian gulf.
"Obama’s administration would like to avoid war with Iran and to build an international coalition against it instead which would make Iran surrender on a number of issues of which the potential program on creation of nuclear weapon is the most loud and obvious. But formation of such a coalition is impossible when there is a hole like Russia in the center of the system", Stratfor says.
According to the authors, the result is that the Americans have long been occupied with the Muslim world thus making Russians happy. "The Iranian distraction strategy worked well: it helped Russians change their surrounding the way that would have been impossible if Americans had more diplomatic and military possibilities to act", the experts said.
In early 2009 Russians revealed three potential challenges to their long-term security which they tried to suppress. First of all, there is Ukraine that is closely connected with Russian industry and agricultural sector. The strong Ukrainian-Russian partnership (or a direct control over Ukraine) is needed to maintain at least a part of the Russian security.
"Five years ago western powers managed to frustrate the Kremlin’s efforts to stiffen Russian control over the political system of Ukraine, which led to the "orange revolution", bringing prowestern Viktor Yuschenko topowers. After five years of serious diplomatic and reconnaissance work, Moscow managed not only to discredit Yushchenko, whose popularity in most public polls is lower that accepted- but also to get an informal loyalty of all of the rest presidential candidates to run for presidency in January. Very soon the western period in Ukraine will formally near a close", George Friedman and Peter Zeikhan say.
According to experts, Russia also seizes control in the Caucasus. “The only country that may challenge Russia in the South flank is Turkey and Armenia has been the best Russian guarantee against the Turkish influence”, the authors say.
Experts consider that several months ago Russia offered Turkey to improve relations with Armenia. "Turks found the way out of the 90 years period of practical paralysis in international relations and they hold on to the possibility to raise their influence in the Caucasus. But in the process, this worsened Turkey’s relations with her previous regional ally Azerbaijan that is Armenia’s eternal enemy. Fearing the loss of their regional ally at any time, Azerbaijanis turned to Russians. In the result Turkey’s positions in the Caucasus today are much weaker than several months ago and Russia can still sabotage any Turkish-Armenian reconciliation", Stratfor says.
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