[D66] Russia prepares for a US-Israeli military strike against Iran

[Antid Oto]

Russia prepares for a US-Israeli military strike against Iran
By Clara Weiss
28 April 2012

Russia has undertaken intensive preparations during the past few months for a
possible military strike by Israel and the United States on Iran. According to
recent reports, the Russian General Staff expects a war against Iran this
summer, with enormous repercussions for not only the Middle East but also the
Caucasus.

Russian troops in the Caucasus have been technically upgraded, and a missile
division situated on the Caspian Sea has been placed in readiness. The missile
cruisers of the Caspian flotilla are now anchored off the coast of Dagestan. The
only Russian military base in the South Caucasus, located in Armenia, is also on
alert for military intervention. Last autumn, Russia sent its aircraft carrier
Kuznetsov to the Syrian port Tartous following the escalation of the conflict in
Syria. Experts believe that Russia would support Tehran in the event of war, at
least on a military-technical level.

In a commentary in April, General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of
Geopolitical Science, wrote that “a war against Iran would be a war against
Russia” and he called for a “political-diplomatic alliance” with China and
India. Operations were being undertaken throughout the Middle East in order to
destabilise the region and proceed against China, Russia and Europe. The war
against Iran, Ivashov wrote, would “end up at our borders, destabilise the
situation in the North Caucasus and weaken our position in the Caspian region.”

Of central concern for Moscow are the consequences for the South Caucasus in the
event of a war against Iran. Armenia is the only ally of the Kremlin in the
region and has close economic links with Iran, while neighbouring Georgia and
Azerbaijan maintain military and economic ties with the United States and Israel.

The Kremlin fears above all that Azerbaijan could participate in a military
alliance alongside Israel and the United States against Iran. Azerbaijan borders
Iran, Russia, Armenia and the Caspian Sea, and since the mid-1990s has been an
important military and economic ally of the US in the South Caucasus, housing
several American military bases.

Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan are already very tense. Tehran has
repeatedly accused Baku of participating in terrorist attacks and acts of
sabotage, most probably in collaboration with the Israeli and American
intelligence agencies. In recent years, Azerbaijan has doubled its military
spending and in February completed a weapons deal with Israel worth US$1.6
billion involving the supply of drones and missile defence systems.

Citing senior sources in the Obama administration, Mark Perry told the American
journal Foreign Policy in late March that Baku had allowed Israel access to
several air bases on the border to northern Iran that could be used for an air
strike on Tehran. The magazine quotes a senior government official saying, “The
Israelis have bought an airport and this airport is Azerbaijan.” Perry warned,
“Military strategists must now take into account a war scenario, which includes
not only the Persian Gulf, but also the Caucasus.”

The Baku government immediately denied the report, but the editor of the
Azerbaijani newspaper Neue Zeit, Shakir Gablikogly, warned that Azerbaijan could
be drawn into a war against Iran.

Even if Azerbaijan should not prove to be the starting point for an Israeli
attack on Iran, there is the danger that war will lead to a military escalation
of other territorial conflicts such as the dispute between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The region has been independent since the end
of the civil war in 1994, but the government in Baku, the US and the European
Council insist it be regarded as part of Azerbaijan. There have been repeated
border conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the past two years, and
commentators have warned that the dispute could escalate into a war involving
Russia, the United States and Iran.

In a recent interview with Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda, military expert
Mikhail Barabanov said that conflicts in the post-Soviet region could lead to
military intervention in Russia. Any intervention in the region by the US or
other NATO power would bring with it “the inevitable risk of the use of nuclear
weapons.” Russia has the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the US.

Due to its geostrategic importance, Eurasia has become the epicentre for
economic and political rivalries and military conflicts between the US and
Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Armenia form a bridge between resource-rich Central Asia and the Caspian Sea on
one side, and Europe and the Black Sea on the other.

The US has sought to win influence in the region via economic alliances since
the 1990s. In 1998, the then US vice president Richard Cheney declared, “I can
not remember a time when a region so suddenly gained such huge strategic
importance as the Caspian.”

In his book The Grand Chessboard (1998), Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national
security adviser to US president Jimmy Carter, wrote: “A power that dominates
Eurasia would control two thirds of the most advanced and economically
productive regions of the world. In Eurasia, there are about three-quarters of
the known energy resources in the world.”

The central importance of the region is its role as a transit area for energy
supplies to Europe from Asia, which bypasses Russia. By supporting alternative
pipeline projects, Washington has sought to weaken Russian links to Europe,
which depends heavily on Russian oil and gas.

So far, Georgia is the key country for the transit of gas and oil supplies and
has been at the heart of conflicts in the region. Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” in
2003 was instigated by Washington to push Mikhail Saakashvili into power as
president in order to safeguard US economic and strategic interests in the
region. It led to an intensification of tensions with Moscow for geostrategic
supremacy. The war between Georgia and Russia in the summer of 2008 represented
a further ratcheting up of the rivalry between the two countries with the
potential to expand into a Russian-American war. Relations between Russia and
Georgia remain very tense.

US influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia has declined significantly in
recent years. In addition to Russia, China has emerged as a major force in the
area, establishing significant economic and military ties with Central Asian
states such as Kazakhstan. Although Russia and China remain rivals, they have
struck a strategic alliance in their competition with the United States. For the
US, war against Iran represents a further stage in its growing confrontation
with China and Russia for control of the energy resources of Central Asia and
the Middle East.

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/russ-a28.shtml