Shifting from sands to steppe

For anyone who doubted how reckless and irresponsible the Russians are willing to be to secure a short-term policy goal, this morning’s Geopolitical Diary from Stratfor should put many of those doubts to bed. Here’s how Stratfor describes the Russians’ recent act of diplomatic sucker-punching:

On Thursday a big meeting involving the United States, Russia, The United Kingdom, France, China and Germany is supposed to be held in New York to discuss another round of sanctions on Iran for its alleged noncompliance in coming clean about its nuclear program. Washington had spent the past two weeks increasing its rhetoric against Iran and was intending for this meeting to add another layer of pressure on the clerical regime in Tehran.

But the Russians have quite thoroughly sabotaged those plans. In a rather blasé manner, the Russian delegation announced on Wednesday that the six-nation meeting on Iran had not been included in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s U.N. General Assembly agenda. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier said, “We see no ‘fire alarm’ which would require us to put off other things in the extremely busy week of the U.N. General Assembly and meet in emergency (session) on the Iranian nuclear problem.” In other words, the Russians simply couldn’t be bothered by the issue.

One might wonder why the Russians are so tolerant, at least ostensibly, toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions. After all, a nuclear Iran poses as much threat to Russia as to the United States or Europe. To understand Russian insouciance, however, isn’t all that hard when you consider the geopolitical implications of America’s involvement in Iraq. Although the situation on the ground has improved over the past two years, the US still has a large army deployed in the Middle East, effectively tying its hands vis-à-vis other emergencies (like, say, the Russian invasion of Georgia). From the Russians’ point of view, they are willing to make the trade-off: a nuclear Iran tomorrow for an encumbered America today.

Due to the inevitability of nuclear proliferation, basing one’s entire foreign policy on deterring states that would develop nuclear weapons is not smart. Such deterrence should feature in policy, but shouldn’t define the big questions. My sense is that most folks in the defense and foreign-policy establishment understand this and are turning attention back to the Russians, whose capacity for mischief is much greater than Iran’s.