America Tiptoes Between the Mines of Iran Russia Thrusts into the Mines of Ukraine

The Biden administration is walking a tightrope between Iran and Russia, grappling with the question of ‘what next?’

It’s clear that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to win militarily in Ukraine. He will be the elephant in the room when the NATO summit convenes next, where he is anticipating that he shall be designated an official enemy of NATO states.

Meanwhile, the battle between the IAEA and Iran over surveillance cameras at nuclear sites has prompted the Biden administration to issue a warning against ‘provocations’, a ‘dangerous nuclear crisis’, and ‘further economic and political isolation’ for Iran – although the US Envoy for Iran Robert Malley was keen to say this: “We are ready for a mutual return to full compliance immediately…Iran just needs to decide to drop its extraneous demands”, and added: “Iran has a way out of the nuclear crisis it has created: cooperate with the IAEA to resolve outstanding safeguards issues”.

The Iranian-Israeli tug of war has taken on different forms beyond the nuclear issue, including remarkable security developments in the Gulf where Israel is discussing the deployment of radar systems, amid efforts on Congress to integrate the air defence systems of Arab states and Israel, and growing resentment among US lawmakers over Biden’s ‘softness’ on Iran.

Deals are still possible between the Biden administration and the regime in Iran, including interim arrangements to rescue the Vienna talks. If successful, these arrangements would revive the JCPOA in return for lifting sanctions on Iran. But the issue of monitoring mechanisms for Iran’s nuclear program is not a trifling one, and Iran’s escalation this week by removing 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear facilities poses serious risks to the bid to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

However, Iran is still seeking a breakthrough at the Vienna talks. It wants to contain the backlash from the US, Germany, Britain, and France, but its priority remains America. According to informed sources, there are indications that Tehran would like to make direct, secret agreements with the Biden administration through unofficial channels without mediators. Tehran wants to sell itself as a force for stability in the oil markets which Washington needs, therefore opening the door to deals with the Biden administration on temporary arrangements, putting any outstanding issues in a basket to be tackled later, and putting issues where is agreement in an immediate basket that would see sanctions on Iran lifted (see last week’s column).

Israel is hypervigilant about Washington’s moves on the nuclear issue, fearing the Biden administration could agree to a secret or public deal with Tehran. Israel is thus working with lawmakers in Congress and Arab states on security issues related to Iran.

The visit by Israeli PM Naftali Bennett to the UAE to meet with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed on Thursday tackled security cooperation, the Iranian challenge and its implications, and the IAEA report, according to an Israeli government spokesperson.

In the US, Republicans and Democrats have submitted a draft bill to Congress that would require the Pentagon to work with Israel and a number of Arab states to integrate their air defences. According to Republican Senator Joni Ernest, the bill would direct the Pentagon to work with allies and partners in the Middle East to establish a defense architecture that would employ a combination of air and missile defense capabilities to protect the region from attacks, including ballistic and cruise missile strikes by Iran and Iran-backed groups such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The partners and allies include the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and other states to be determined by the Secretary of Defense, according to Ernest.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said more than once that his ‘resistance’ is ready not only to stand up to Israel, but also to prevent it from the extraction of oil and gas from the disputed Karish field. This week he said that “any folly that the enemy may perpetrate will not only have strategic but also existential consequences”.

Reading between the lines of Nasrallah’s speech makes it clear that Tehran has not yet decided whether to unleash Hezbollah on Israel, or whether it would rein in Hezbollah while escalating verbally to communicate to Washington its willingness to make a deal while threatening retaliation in the event the Vienna talks fail. Nasrallah’s language left room for the President of Lebanon to negotiate, especially through the US Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein but reserved the right to engage in ‘resistance’ to secure his share of Lebanon’s oil and gas resources and the right to veto any agreement he doesn’t find favorable. However, Nasrallah’s remarks about ‘existential’ consequences follow Iranian and not Lebanese calculations.

Hezbollah’s move to introduce the ‘resistance’ into the fate of Lebanon’s oil and gas resources undermines the authority of the state and makes the country’s oil and gas hostage to Iran’s strategic and existential calculations and decisions. This no doubt is a source of concern for the Biden administration, as it walks a tightrope between Lebanon and Israel’s negotiations over maritime borders to determine each side’s oil and gas exploration rights.

Biden administration officials are aware of the role Iran has in this issue but have decided that the nuclear talks should be separated from Iran’s regional behavior, from Lebanon to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Yet today they are having to reconsider because of Israel, despite their increased enthusiasm for a deal with Iran to get Iranian oil to compensate for the European ban on Russian oil. Hence the tightrope, especially as the war in Ukraine and stopping Russia take priority in the US grand strategy.

Back to the crisis with Russia, the NATO summit between 28 and 30 June in Madrid is of particular significance to Russia. Until that date, Moscow expects the battles in Ukraine to intensify. Putin is determined to achieve a victory in Donbas in the next two weeks, to later make a move on Odessa and perhaps annex Transnistria later in the autumn. His clear goal is to expand Russia’s borders and territories. Isolating Ukraine from the Black Sea is a key goal for Putin, but Russia’s bigger classical goal is to seize more land to confront the ‘enemy’.

Putin expects Russia to be designated as an ‘enemy’ at the next NATO summit, after once having been close to becoming a NATO ‘partner’. But one of the ways Putin intends to deal with the summit – in addition to expanding his land grab – is to leverage Turkey’s near-rogue status in NATO, in the eyes of some members at least.

Indeed, there are efforts to convene a summit in Sochi between Putin and Turkish President Erdogan next week, deliberately to fall shortly before the NATO summit. President Putin intends to take advantage of President Biden’s fury with Erdogan’s opposition to Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. Resolving this problem has become less likely, after Sweden rejected Turkey’s conditions regarding its ties to Kurdish factions, further antagonizing Erdogan and making him more mutinous inside the alliance.

The NATO summit in this case has to either find a way to sidestep the necessary ‘unanimity’ needed to adopt resolutions, or put further pressure on Erdogan, along the lines of reported US steps to threaten Erdogan with economic sanctions that could hurt him in the elections. This is all music to Putin’s ears, as he counts on Turkey to create problems at the transatlantic summit.

From the Kremlin’s point of view, Turkey’s ‘black sheep’ status in NATO and its ability to block unanimity in the alliance benefits Russia, despite Turkish support to Ukraine in the war with Russia. Putin is willing to pay an economic price to Turkey, and in Syria to some extent by agreeing with Ankara on maintaining the status quo there. So far, Turkey has failed to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, or between Russia and the United States, but it remains valuable to Putin because of this NATO connection.

What is important for the Russian president is to expand Russia’s borders as part of the project to revive the Russian empire, including in the Baltic States, Poland, and Ukraine. This is the same vision invoked by Putin on in July 2021, when he declared his intention to subjugate Ukraine by military force if necessary. The headline is: Russia will win or lose only by fierce military force.

Putin’s problem lies in the fact that the Western powers have united against him. Russia’s further implication in Ukraine increases the chances for a direct military confrontation with NATO powers starting in Ukrainian territory, and no one knows what could happen after that.

According to Russian experts, Russia is militarily capable of destroying Ukraine. It has enough missiles to repeat what they term ‘the Baghdad scenario’, a euphemism for total devastation. However, in such a scenario, “Russia may win territory, but it will be locked for decades in a conflict with an angry, vengeful US-backed Ukraine”, according to one expert. He added: “Then we would be in a cold war of a different kind, with another Afghanistan bleeding us on our border”.

In short, it is a war that cannot be on by any side, neither Russia, nor the United States, and certainly not Ukraine no matter how much US and European military hardware is supplied to assist it. The dilemma, however, is that things are past the point of no return.

The Russian public opinion is used rely on the directives of Putin’s autocracy, which is keen on excluding the Russian people from decision making. Yet the odd thing about this autocracy is that it is installed with people’s consent, who have yet to feel the real impact of the sanctions on their country.

By contrast, the American and European public have started to grumble about a war with Russia that has no well defined goals, and whose biggest beneficiaries are the military-industrial complex and oil companies. The American and European public don’t understand the logic behind defeating Russia at a high economic cost to them. For this reason, the Biden administration and European governments are under scrutiny, despite the appearance of popular support for their policies.

What could happen next? If Russia wins the war in Ukraine while pursuing the Putinist vision, Russia would then control its borders with NATO. If it loses, Russia will be removed from the global geopolitical equation, leaving the world under the dominance of only two poles: The United States and China.

Putin sees no option but to win the war then win the presidential election again in 2023. The West appears set to prevent a Russian victory, staring Putin down in the hope he would back down. But he will not back down.

Clearly, the war in Ukraine will continue and there is no room at all for a political settlement now. There is no leaving this predicament. So the question facing the Biden administration and the NATO summit is this: What if Putin escalates to further military brutality to guarantee the conquest of Ukrainian territory? Is Biden willing to enter into a direct war with Russia?

Truly, he is walking a tightrope.