Among the Caspian Sea littoral states' leaders who gathered for a summit in Tehran, the host, President Mehmoud Ahmedinejad, must have been the happiest man to hear what Russian President Vladimir Putin had to say at a press conference on Tuesday. And, in fact, a ray of hope may have been seen by all those who long for an old Soviet style counterweight to the arrogant and erring ways of the sole superpower headed by George W. Bush.
Along with the other leaders of the Caspian Sea states, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Putin defended Iran's right to "research, produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful ends, without discrimination within the framework of NPT, which is what Iran has been telling the Europeans and through them the US as well.
The Russian leader also reminded journalists that his "is the only country helping Iran to construct a nuclear power station for peaceful ends." Contrary to the western hopes that Russia may not fulfil its commitment to complete the construction of the Bushehr power station, he declared that his government intended to go ahead with the project. If the EU and the USA are still thinking about slapping stringent sanctions on Tehran, they may have to think twice before they go to the Security Council where Russia wields veto power.
The Bush administration has also been saying that if all else fails it could use force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Putin had a strong assurance to offer Iran on that score too. Said he, "it is also important that we talk about the impossibility of using our territory for other countries to carry out aggression or military action against other Caspian littoral states." The assertion, of course, needs to be seen in the context of reports that the US could use its ally Azerbaijan to attack Iran.
Going by Putin's assertions that possibility is now to be consigned to the realm of 'impossibility.' It, in fact, amounts to killing two, actually several, birds with one stone: Iran gets the assurance that its northern neighbours will not allow their territory to be used as a new launching pad for Bush's proclivity to shock and cow down smaller nations, in order to restrain Iran's alleged attempts to make nuclear weapons; Central Asian States hosting American bases may feel impelled to remove them; Russia can reclaim the lost status it enjoyed under the erstwhile Soviet Union as a counterbalance to US's imperial impulse; and it would also succeed in keeping the US out of the great game for Caspian Sea basin's oil and gas resources.
Windfall profits from the unprecedented rise in international oil prices have helped Russia to gain the economic strength as well as confidence to reemerge as a world power, which has both the urge and ability to resist America's hegemonic designs. At an earlier time, Putin had allowed Bush to rubbish the IBM Treaty, but is now unwilling to let him install a so-called missile defence system in what Russia regards as its front yard in Europe, ie the Czech Republic and Poland.
To the smaller nations in this part of the world it is certainly a good thing to see Russia reasserting some of its old eminence, especially in the wake of Bush's disastrous military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, threats of attack against Iran, and blind backing of Israeli aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as southern Lebanon. Significantly, of late even a country like Saudi Arabia has been showing signs of warming up to Russia. Different regional groupings, in which Russia along with China is an active partner, are gaining vitality. For now China is playing a low-key role in the interest of its rapidly growing trade with the West.
Russia has no such qualms. Slowly but surely the balance of world power is shifting towards the point where the US will no longer remain the sole superpower, thanks to Bush and his neo-con cabal's hubris. The multi-polar world that France under Jacques Chirac talked of is in the making though the major challenges to the US's power, it seems, would come from the old-new adversaries in the East rather than Europe.
Comments
Comments are closed.