With Brazil's help, Iran puts Russia to the test over sanctions

Russia’s resolve to support sanctions against Iran will be sorely tested this week as the Islamic republic ratchets up the pressure over a nuclear fuel swap deal.

The two countries clashed last month over Russia’s support for a draft UN resolution imposing further sanctions on Tehran. In a statement. “If I were the Russian president,” President Ahmadinejad warned, “when making decisions about subjects related to a great nation…I would act more cautiously”.

The response from the Kremlin was as quick as it was robust, accusing the Iranian leader of “political demagoguery” and stating that Russia would act in its own people’s interest and not in those of America or Iran.

As I argued in a previous post, Russia, along with China, has been a critical factor in allowing Iran to avoid harsher international sanctions in the past. Using the threat of veto in the security council, they have forced the watering down of three previous attempts to punish Iran for flouting international law and UN resolutions on uranium enrichment.

A growing sense of frustration with Tehran’s refusal to negotiate a compromise has led President Medvedev and his administration to abandon its softly-softly approach. With the UN vote looming, it looked as though this time Iran had become a victim of its own obstinacy and would pay a harsh penalty for it.

But for all the rhetoric and political grandstanding, Iran appears to have found something of a trump card by striking a deal with Brazil and Turkey over a nuclear fuel swap. The deal mimics one offered by Moscow that Iran provisionally expressed interest in while the threat of sanctions were on the table, but quickly abandoned once the pressure had eased.

The lesson, however, appears not to have been learned. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said last month that the new deal “serves the interest of settling the Iranian nuclear problem” and called for everything to be done to implement it. He refused to clarify the Kremlin’s position on UN security council sanctions.

So how has Ahmadinejad managed to once again take his country to the brink but then apparently sidestep censure at the last?

Firstly, whether intentional or not, the decision to use Brazil and Turkey as mediators was something of a masterstroke by the Iranian leader. Brazil’s President Lula is eager to make his mark on the international political stage. Already dubbed “the world’s most popular politician”, Lula has capitalised on an economic renaissance in his country—and the sharp fall in America’s political cachet in recent years—to seize a spot on the world stage. Dealing with the Iranian crisis is yet another opportunity to prove his credibility and illustrate Brazil’s emergence as a global mediator.

“People say that it was none of Brazil’s business to be an intermediary with Iran,” Lula said of criticism of Brazilian involvement. “But who said it was a matter for the United States?”

In the case of Turkey, of course, there were even more pressing reasons for its involvement. As Josef Joffe argued in a recent piece for the Financial Times, the recent spat with Israel over the aid flotilla to Gaza shows Turkey has perceived the leadership of the region as up for grabs. While Syria is still licking its wounds from being forced out of Lebanon and with Egypt in a state of torpor there is a vacuum at the top of Middle Eastern politics that Turkey seems eager to fill.

What this all amounts to is an uncertain prognosis over the success of the latest round of sanctions. The key will be whether Russia has been offered sufficient incentives to stick by its commitment to supporting the resolution despite being offered the deal that it has long been pushing for.

The news today that Iran would abandon discussions on the deal if the sanctions are passed may well prove a game changer. Across the Atlantic the vote will be perceived as another major test for President Obama’s commitment to diplomacy over unilateral action and an example of just how successful the resetting of relations with Moscow has been. Washington will be waiting nervously for the outcome.