[Mb-civic] America cannot have it both ways with Russia >By Nikolas Gvosdev and Dimitri Simes

[Michael Butler]

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America cannot have it both ways with Russia
>By Nikolas Gvosdev and Dimitri Simes
>Published: April 5 2006 20:05 | Last updated: April 5 2006 20:05
>>

The United States has insisted it is serious about working through the
United Nations to put meaningful pressure on Iran to give up its quest for a
nuclear weapons capability. But the watered-down and anaemic statement
issued recently by the UN Security Council (itself a product of three weeks
of intensive negotiations) does not bode well for success. It is a useful
first step but clearly far short of what the Bush administration wanted.

Yet, as Brent Scowcroft, the former US national security adviser, observed
recently: ³To deter Iran, it is essential that there be a united front
between the US, the European Union, Russia and China to prevent Iran from
exploiting any differences or finding any sort of wiggle room that would
allow it to continue with its programme.²

Russia does not want a nuclear-armed Iran. And the government of Vladimir
Putin, Russian president, understands very well that it is in Russia¹s
interests to be on the right side of the US on an issue as important as this
­ especially when Washington is acting in concert with the big European
powers.

But Tehran with the bomb is a far less existential threat to Russia than the
US. Those in the west who repeat the mantra that an ³Islamist² Iran with
nuclear weapons would jeopardise Russian security are seemingly unaware that
from Moscow¹s perspective, Iran has, on the whole, behaved as a ³responsible
citizen² in Russia¹s neighbourhood.

Russia may be prepared to pay a price to accommodate US concerns, even at
the expense of valuable economic ties with Tehran ­ but co-operation with
the US on Iran is being endangered by the propensity of some in the Bush
administration, as well as a rising chorus of voices outside government, to
shift US policy from its current approach of engagement towards an
unrealistic notion of ³selective co-operation².

Proponents of an ³a la carte² partnership expect Moscow to support fully
Washington on an issue of grave importance to the US, while believing that
the US can, at no cost, pursue policies that Russia perceives to be hostile
to its interests in the post-Soviet space.

Most Russians believe that Washington has adopted a strategy of opposing all
manifestations of Russian influence in the Eurasian space, even when Russia
has legitimate concerns ­ although its recent move to charge market rates
for natural gas was clumsy. The US championed the case of a pro-American
government in Ukraine, that it should continue to obtain gas from Russia at
heavily subsidised rates. Now observers in Moscow are waiting to see whether
Washington will do the same for a Belarus that has been notified that it,
too, must pay market prices for Russian energy. They complain that
Washington torpedoed a peace plan for Moldova that would have given the
pro-Russian region of Trans-Dnistria a considerable degree of autonomy, and
are suspicious that the US will stand aside and let Mikheil Sakaashvili,
Georgian president, apply military pressu