An analyst believes the European Union would not like to sit idly watching Russia’s growing relations with Iran and, unlike the US, would in turn move to improve its ties with Tehran to prevent a new “power bloc” limiting its sway in Middle East.
“The EU has reached the conclusion that a ‘new power bloc’ [comprising Tehran and Moscow] has been created in the Middle East, which can undermine its clout in the region, like the Syrian case, but it knows that it needs to increase its relations with Tehran to prevent this bloc from becoming more powerful,” Bahaeddin Bazargani wrote recently for dipolmacy.ir.
He noted that the EU has realized Tehran’s crucial role in the region and knows that Iran’s diverse political landscape would give it more political stability, making it a major force in the volatile Middle East region.
Bazargani pointed to the huge natural resources of Iran, especially gas and oil, as well as Tehran’s strong ties with its neighbors like Iraq and Afghanistan as the main factors convincing the EU that they need to stop Tehran-Moscow becoming full-fledged strategic partners.
Strategic Partners?
Tehran and Moscow saw their relations jumping to a new level when the two powerhouses pooled their military resources in Syria, helping the embattled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad defeat a foreign-backed militancy there.
The two sides have recently announced that they would scrap the US dollar for their banking transactions and instead use their own currencies, a move that would make it harder for international sanctions to affect their economic ties.
Russia also blocked a resolution at the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 26 that would have pressured Iran over US allegations that Iranian-supplied missiles had been used by Houthi fighters in Yemen. Tehran has denied any role in Houthis’ missile attacks on Saudi Arabia.
This was the first time Russia torpedoed a US-led move in the Security Council regarding a regional conflict in which it had not been directly involved. Moscow did not block the western moves over Iraq in 2003 or over Libya in 2011, although Russian interests were involved. Nor did Moscow block Kosovo’s admission to the UN as a sovereign state, piloted by the West, in 2008, although it was a bitter pill to swallow in every sense.
Iran-EU Energy Link
Bazargani said the EU’s reliance on Russia’s gas and energy resources can be eased if it opts to choose Iran as a supplier, a possibility he said is looking more and more likely.
“Iran-EU energy cooperation in the long run can take on the quality of a strategic one,” he said.
The analyst cited energy as the most fragile policy among EU member states, saying the bloc finds itself in a rock-and-hard-place situation when it comes to energy.
“On the one hand, the US sanctions and in some cases sabotage against Russian companies have bottlenecked energy supplies coming into Europe, and on the other, it cannot rely on Iran’s energy resources because of [US] destructive policies and sanctions,” he said.
But this situation will not last for too long, Bazargani said, adding that “in critical circumstances, the strategic needs of the EU would lead it toward Iran.”
“The EU wants to have relations with Iran and does not like to sit idly watching Russia having the upper hand in its relations with Tehran,” he concluded.
