Unholy Triangle: Russia Supports Iran which Supports Hezbollah

By Michael Kraft

Buried in the avalanche of news about the Lebanon crisis is an important and negative development in the U.S. government’s relations with Russia over its soft approach to Iran, Hezbollah’s prime backer.

The U.S. Government has imposed sanctions against two Russian companies and five others from North Korea, India and Cuba for transferring equipment that could contribute toward Iran’s development of weapons of mass destruction and of cruise or ballistic missile systems. The Counterterrorism Blog carried a link to the announcement on Friday.

The sanctions were made public Friday against the backdrop of the attempts in the United Nations and elsewhere to curb Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The sanctions also emerged amid reports that Iran has provided Hezbollah with long-range missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Knowing the bureaucracy, however, the internal U.S. government’s paper work for approving the sanctions and listing them in the Federal Register undoubtedly was initiated long before the reports of the long-range Iranian missiles became general knowledge.

Russian reactions to the sanctions suggested a new low in already chilly relations between the U.S. and Moscow, partly because one of the firms is headed by a close friend of President Vladimir Putin, Reuters said in a report from Moscow today.

The Russian reaction also reflects its continuing rift with the United States over America's more assertive efforts to curb Iran’s drive toward developing nuclear weapons.

“This is a clearly illegitimate attempt to make foreign companies work by internal American rules,” a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. It also asserted that such unilateral sanctions “are an obvious political and legal anachronism, especially when such moves are made under far-fetched pretexts.”

However, the sanctions actually are part of a long standing effort to use peaceful means—in this case economic pressures—to slow down Iran’s purchases of equipment and materials that could help it become a nuclear power capable of firing nuclear missiles against neighboring countries and perhaps even to areas of Europe.

They were imposed under the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, which prohibits the U.S. government from making purchases from companies that have been found to be providing equipment or materials that could contribute to Tehran’s development of missiles or nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. The ban lasts for two years

At the time the legislation was being considered, I remember a key Senate staffer saying the legislation was intended to drive home to foreign companies and their governments that they can’t do business that helps Iran endanger the world and expect to do business as usual with the United States. (American firms already were prohibited from exporting sensitive material to Iran and other countries on the terrorism list.)

The Iran Sanctions Act of 2000 is an effort to deal with a major problem in utilizing economic sanctions—how to put pressure on non-U.S. companies whose governments have weak export controls or otherwise are more interested in making a dollar (or Euro) than countering terrorists and curbing the activities of governments that support international terrorism.

Russia, it should be remembered, had major business dealings with the old Iraqi government. Along with France, another Iraq business partner, it had continually opposed the U.S. led efforts to tighten sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq regime which was believed to be continuing its efforts to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. These and other leaks in the sanctions efforts made it more difficult to get Saddam Hussein to cooperate sufficiently with UN inspectors and helped set the environment for those who believed military action was needed. More recently the Putin government has dragged its feet on efforts by the other major powers to impose pressures against Iran’s nuclear weapon program. Moscow has been trying to burnish its pro-Arab image during the Lebanon crisis.

Reacting to the Iranian-related sanctions disclosed last week, Russian analysts and officials are hinting that Russia might retaliate by curbing activities of American business firms. The newspaper Izvestia called the sanctions “practically a declaration of economic war against Russia.” ”

In reality the Iran Act’s sanctions may be more symbolic than biting; especially if the Russian companies are not doing business with the U.S. government as they claim. Sergei Chemezov, the head of Rosonboronexport which was one of the sanctioned Russian firms, was quoted by Reuters as saying that his company does no business with the U.S. Government. The second Russian company is Sukhoi, a state owned manufacturer of military jets. According to Reuters and other press reports, the head of Rosoboronexport is a close friend of President Putin.

For the record, the two North Korean firms cited for violating the Iran Act were the Korean Mining and Industrial Development Corporation and the Korea Pugan Trading Company. Also listed were two Indian firms, Balaji Amines and Prachi Poly Products and one Cuban firm, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.

If the Russian companies were not doing business with the U.S. and were not supplying Iran since the Iranian Sanctions Act came into force, one can wonder why the Russian reaction was so sharp—almost like the lady protesting too much.

The sanctions dispute comes within a wider Middle East context. In effect, Russia has been aiding Iran, which in turn has been conducting a proxy war against the U.S. for decades. Iran is the prime backer of Hezbollah which bombed the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. Iran was involved in the bombing of the U.S. military’s Kobar Tower barracks facilities in Saudi Arabia in 1996. American and British military officials also have said that Iran has been supplying anti-coalition insurgents in Iraq with special shaped explosives charges to attack armored vehicles.

In short, Russian has been giving material and diplomatic supporting to a country that is conducting a form of undeclared low intensity war against the United States. And Moscow complains when we take relatively minor actions against two of its state-owned companies!

TrackBack