Window on Eurasia

Russians Back Iran Against Israel and U.S., Retired General Says

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 1, 2006 – Leonid Ivashov, former deputy head of the Russian
General Staff, told the Russian Service of the Voice of Iran that the
majority of Russians and their elites back Iran in its disputes with
Israel and the U.S., even though the Kremlin has to “maneuver” lest
it offend Washington or members of the media elite in Moscow.

In an interview on the Voice of Iran’s website today, Col.Gen.
Ivashov, known for his ultra-nationalist and often anti-Semtic
comments, said that “the main problem” for the U.S. – or more precisely
“the Jewish financial international” -- now is not Tehran’s
nuclear program but rather protecting the dollar and supporting the
U.S. economy.

Iran’s nuclear problem, Ivashov continued, “disturbs only Israel”
which is “a nuclear monopolist in the Near and Middle East and fears
losing its monopoly.” The rest of the international community, he
asserted, “is not particularly interested” in that question.

Consequently, “the question of whether [the U.S. and Israel] will
attack Iran depends on whether this will be favorable to the world
financial elite or not”
[http://www.irib.ir/worldservice/russian%20radio/HTML/always/interview/47.htm];
redistributed on the“Russkaya liniya” Internet portal at
[http://www.rusk.ru/], July 31.

Ivashov insisted that Russia and Iran not only have cultures that have
much in common but also have immediate political interests in defending
their “civilizations” against the depradations of globalization
sponsored by the United States and international financial circles.

“The West is categorically different from us,” Ivashov said. “In
Russia, the civilizational code is rooted in conscience and a just
approach to problems; in Islam, duty and justice also form the
foundations of social, political and economic principles. But the code
of Western civilization is based on profit alone.”

That means that Russians and Iranians must work together to defend
their civilizations and also to promote “peace on earth,” something they
can do by expanding the existing system of economic, military and
political cooperation at all levels, ties that continued even under
former President Boris Yeltsin.

Asked whether all members of the Russian elite share this perspective,
Ivashov said that “the healthy part of the Russian elite” does but
that both the pressure of Moscow media not under the control of that
“healthy” elite and the need to propitiate American power mean that
Moscow mean that the Kremlin is likely to “maneuver.”

Thus, as even Ivashov was forced to admit, not everyone in Moscow
shares the views on Iran and its government that he does. But he insists that
Moscow will be driven to back Iran in the end because “that is what
must be the position of Russo-Islamic Russia.”

Despite their extreme anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli tone,
Ivashov’s views views and especially their spread across Russia by
the Voice of Iran’s Russian Service and by Russian nationalist websites
are likely to play an ever larger part in policy discussions in Moscow.

And that conclusion is all the more justified because, as Ivashov
himself concludes his interview, “Russia is taking many correct steps
in the foreign policy arena: the invitation of Hamas [leaders to
Moscow] and the [more general] turn toward the side of China and the Islamic
world” against the United States and its allies.

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