Carnegie Moscow Center
Unlike Tehran, Pyongyang fears external threats more than internal ones and may at most agree to freeze its nuclear program. Though this scenario is arguably the best one imaginable, political considerations in Washington make it all but impossible.
The tensions in Russian-Western relations will not lead to a direct collision between Russia and NATO. The current surge of mutual psychosis has no relation to the military security.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to lift a ban on the exports of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran has caused shockwaves in the West and Israel. However, the Kremlin’s move was quite predictable with a rather clearly discernible logic behind it.
President Putin’s decision to lift the ban on the transfer of the S-300 air defense system to Iran signals a new departure for Moscow’s policy in the Middle East.
It will take Iran a long time to make up the ground it has lost in the South Caucasus since the end of the Soviet Union.
The prospect of a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran in the next few months, if executed rigorously and embedded in wider strategies for regional order and global nuclear order, can be a significant turning point.
A discussion about the heated politics of the Iran talks, Putin, and past U.S. secretaries of state.
The risk of a failure to reach a comprehensive deal with Iran is growing. However, a gradualist approach is the most realistic option for solving the nuclear issue.
If the nuclear talks fail, further Russian cooperation on coercing Iran is not likely while Russia and the West remain locked in a standoff over Ukraine. Moreover, Russia and Iran may move to build closer relations in the future.
It is still unclear whether Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman’s trip will bring any deep changes in Russian-Israeli relations. However, the fact that Lieberman’s agenda in Moscow included such a wide range of questions shows that, at present, the two countries’ interests intersect at many points.