 An Interview with John Parker on Russia – Iran Relations. Valentina Pasquali – Washington Prism Iran and Russia have entertained a long and complex relationship for centuries, and one which goes well beyond the current contentious issues. Coexisting in the same delicate regional environment, spanning from the Caucasus to Central Asia and reaching all the way into the Middle East, Moscow and Teheran share a history of mutual engagement and have always tried to strike a difficult balance between their sometime overlapping and sometime conflicting interests. Persian Dreams, a book by John W. Parker, unleashes an impressive wealth of details to unveil this story, thanks to first-hand interviews as well as in-depth research on primary and secondary sources. A self-described old school Sovietologist, Parker is the chief of the Division for Caucasus and Central Asia in the Office for Russian and Eurasian Analysis at the bureau of Intelligence and Research within the U.S. Department of State. Parker is also the author of the two-volume work Kremlin in Transition (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1991.) In 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Parker was assigned to follow the civil war that swept through the newly established Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan. It was then, for the first time, that Parker encountered the bilateral dealings between Russia and Iran and was surprised to discover that Moscow and Teheran were able to support opposing sides in the Tajik civil war while cooperating on a host of other issues, such as Afghanistan and arms trade. Enticed by the complexities that characterized the Russia-Iran relationship, Parker decided to delve into its past, to the time of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and even further back to territorial disputes dating to the 1800s, before following the relation’s many twist and turns through the Islamic Revolution and well into the 21st Century, as the nuclear issue acquired increasing prominence in the post-9/11 world. In this interview with Washington Prism, John W. Parker discusses some of the findings of his book and explains why Russia-Iran dealings deserve to be taken into more account. Washington Prism (WP): From a reading of Persian Dreams, the Russia-Iran relation emerges as one of opposing tensions, mutual mistrust, and yet a continuous desire for engagement. Is that an accurate characterization? John W. Parker (JP): Russia and Iran do have a long history with each other, dating back millennia. And there is a historical mistrust between them. But, at least from the Russian point of view, out of this mistrust the feeling is generated that they have to remain engaged with Iran, if only to keep Iran from doing more things that Moscow doesn’t like. Additionally, there have been issues, particularly regional issues, where they have agreed and collaborated. Tajikistan after 1992 is an example of this. Prior to 1992, the Russians and the Iranians supported opposite sides in the civil war, and my reading is that the Iranians actually helped set the civil war in motion but then had to back down. In any case, after the peace process started in Tajikistan, Moscow and Teheran worked together on it, in large part because of what was happening in Afghanistan. In fact, they both opposed the Taliban. Iran traditionally has felt it has a sphere of influence in Afghanistan’s western border regions, in places such as Herat. 
From the Russian point of view, out of mutual mistrust the feeling
is generated that they have to remain engaged with Iran, if only to keep Iran
from doing more things that Moscow doesn’t like. Another example of collaboration would be Chechnya. Despite Chechnya’s Muslim population, and in part precisely because of engagement with Russia over Afghanistan, Iran never really supported the Chechen Liberation Movement. When the first Chechen war broke out, Iran had already gambled and lost in Tajikistan and had a more realistic view of whether people inside the former Soviet Republics would support an Iranian-type of revolution. Then, by the time the second Chechen war began, the Taliban had taken over Kabul giving Iran even less of an incentive to make troubles for Russia in Chechnya, since even greater threats to Iran and Russia’s common interests were now posed by the Taliban. This is a long way of saying that, historically, Russia and Iran have not trusted each other. However, there are issues that come along on which they have common interests and on which they work together despite their mistrust. |
