Iran and Russia. Two pretty best friends

Photo: Oleksandr Polonskyi / Shutterstock

According to international human rights organisations, over 500 people have died as of writing as a result of the brutal crackdown on protests, including over 60 minors. Most were killed by gunshots to the head. Several people were hanged for participating in protests. Close to 20,000 people were reportedly arrested. It is likely that the number of unreported cases is higher.

Structural disenfranchisement

Iran was a monarchy until 1979. Since the revolution, Iran has been an “Islamic Republic”, where strict rules of life apply. The Iranian regime’s policy of disenfranchisement is particularly evident when it comes to the issue of female self-determination. A woman’s decision-making power in Iran is vested in men in all important areas of life, first in her father and later in her husband. From the age of nine, women must adhere to a lifetime of veiling regulations in public spaces. They are considered ready to get married two years before boys, as early as their 13th birthday, and encounter mandatory control throughout their lives. Men can always divorce in Iran, women only under certain conditions. They automatically lose custody of their children in the event of a divorce. The reality of such practices is decided in Iran not only by discriminatory legislation, but also by the composition of the judiciary. The ability to judge is reserved for men only. In family law matters alone, women are allowed to serve in an advisory capacity. In court, a woman’s testimony is worth only half as much as that of a man.

Structural disenfranchisement in Iran, however, does not only affect female gender identity. The fate of Jina Mahsa Amini illustrates the intersection of different dimensions of oppression in Iran. As a Kurdish woman, the young woman was part of an ethnic and religious minority that, according to many international human rights organisations, is structurally discriminated against and exploited in Iran. Ethnic and religious minorities, such as the Bahai or the Baluch, are labelled different and inferior in Iran, and their legitimate claims to social and political participation are negated. Disadvantaged groups live in neglected regions that lack basic infrastructure facilities such as hospitals.

Even though Iran regularly describes itself as a multi-ethnic state, Persian nationalism and Shiism have always dominated the country. In Iran, the “land of the Aryans”, minorities enjoy cultural freedoms, but they cannot implement them in decisive structures, although they would have the legitimate right to do so as an indigenous population. For example, they can speak their own language but cannot teach it in schools. In 2019, a 28-year-old woman was sentenced to five years in prison for teaching Kurdish on a voluntary basis. Time and again, people who work to assert the rights of ethnic or religious minorities disappear. Not infrequently, they are hanged in show trials. This is just one case of a puzzle whereby the identities of many social groups are criminalised to justify a racist state doctrine.

Living in poverty and exclusion does not allow one to “buy one’s way out” of administrative or police injustice, as Tehran’s high society can. Rather, minorities in Iran are overrepresented in crime statistics, and receive higher and harsher sentences on average. They can rarely afford legal counsel because of their poverty. The brute force crackdown on protests therefore unsurprisingly hit areas inhabited by minorities particularly hard in recent months. While people in Tehran are happy to be able to walk around partially without headscarves, the danger to the lives of members of minorities in Iran remains acute.

Iran and the South Caucasus

If Iran treats its own population in this way, the question arises as to how it deals with others. In fact, the Iranian regime is not only taking a hard line in its own country. Let us look at the South Caucasus, a region that is actually the geopolitical focal point for Russia’s policy in the post-Soviet space. Here, too, traces of Iranian influence can be found.

In north-western Iran lies the province of Western Azerbaijan, home to the largest ethnic minority in Iran, the Azerbaijanis. Both present-day Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan were controlled by Persia for a long time until 1828. Accordingly, there are close cultural similarities between Iran and Azerbaijan. For example, the majority of the population of both countries is Shiite and they share a common history. However, Soviet restrictions on emigration cut off many Azerbaijanis in the former USSR from their relatives in Iran. Shortly after the Republic of Azerbaijan declared independence in 1991, its then president called for a “Greater Azerbaijan”. This was to include parts of Iran and also Armenia. Nothing persistent really came of these ambitious visions. But because of this, among other things, Iran is constantly concerned about Azerbaijani irredentism.

In response to this fault line and Azerbaijan’s deepening relations with Iran’s arch-rival, Israel, Tehran has in turn grown increasingly close to Azerbaijan’s regional rival, Armenia. And yet, this is not enough for Iran to provide substantial support to the Armenians, who have been plagued by invasion and political violence. Despite this, Armenia’s deputy foreign minister credited Iranian statements with preventing a major conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2022. In fact, Iran is taking a fairly passive role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, regularly promoting only symbolic policies. For example, Iran has failed to do anything about the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor since mid-December 2022, which completely cuts off Armenians in Karabakh from the supply of essential goods. Conversely, Armenia repeatedly covers Iran’s back in an international context. Most recently, for example, it voted on whether to establish an independent UN commission of inquiry into Iran to investigate human rights abuses committed in recent months during the revolt. Armenia was one of only six countries on the Human Rights Council to vote against. The Council is composed of 47 countries.

While Armenia’s position is rooted in its geopolitical isolation, its proximity to Iran appears to make it of strategic importance to Tehran. Overall, it is difficult to explain why Iran is leaving the Armenians hanging by a thread. However, the Iranians’ passivity could also be due to the fact that they do not want to undermine the Russians’ predominance in the South Caucasus. Iranian-Russian relations are therefore particularly relevant at this point. The relationship has changed qualitatively, not least since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow does not like to talk about its relations with Tehran. Hence, it is time to take a closer look at it.

Destabilisation as a business model

Last July, Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Tehran to announce their new geopolitical stance to the world. Moreover, they also wished to demonstrate that they are not isolated, despite the strongest international criticism. In a statement, the three rulers “reaffirmed their determination to continue their ongoing cooperation to eliminate terrorist individuals, groups, companies and entities once and for all”. On his following trip through Iran, Putin sought to solidify the bilateral alliance. It has since become a counterweight to efforts aimed at containing western adversaries.

It is undisputed that Iran is providing military support to Russia in the war in Ukraine. In particular, the supply of combat drones is a key issue. The arms cooperation between the two states has existed for some time. Indeed, Moscow has supplied air defence systems to Tehran in the past. In the future, Iran hopes to receive battle tanks and fighter jets in return. Conversely, Moscow sees itself dependent on Iran’s drones because they cannot access other deliveries due to sanctions. According to experts, Iranian drones cannot compete with those made in America or Turkey. However, Iran has been continuously developing its drone programme since the 1980s. It has also been able to gain operational experience. The drones have already been tested by Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example, and proved to be effective. Hezbollah are a radical Islamist militia founded in the early 1980s after the Islamic Revolution in Iran by a group of about 500 fighters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Classified as a terrorist organisation by many states, Hezbollah has been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks. Experts describe it as an Iranian proxy. The Houthis, who rebelled against the Yemeni government in 2015, triggering the civil war in the country that continues to this day, are also supported by Iran. They have used Iranian drones to attack targets in Saudi Arabia on several occasions. These are just two examples in which Iran’s influence is enforced militarily beyond its own borders. Overall, the list of Iranian activities is long.

Adding to the operational capability of Iranian drones is the Iranians’ experience with sanctions and evading them. For a long time, Iran was the most sanctioned country in the world. It has since been overtaken by Russia. Despite strict sanctions, Tehran has managed to consolidate power and accumulate capital, albeit only for its political elite. The system of opaque evasion of sanctions offers a wealth of experience that the Russians could also access. After all, the Iranians have succeeded in developing powerful weapons systems in isolation in recent years. In particular, the Iranians’ continuous uranium enrichment should not go unmentioned at this point, despite great international opposition. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is about to cross the nuclear threshold. This means that they could soon have enough uranium to build a nuclear bomb. Unlike some other states, Iran does not seem to see its arms industry merely as a business model. Rather, it is geostrategic interests that Iran is trying to achieve. The business model is thus much more about promoting political instability in border regions with political rivals while at the same time asserting itself as a regional player. In Eastern Europe, Ukraine is thus currently becoming a new arena for indirect Iranian power projection.

In the past, all domestic structures in Iran that could challenge the regime were also destabilised. While much of the Iranian population lives below the poverty line, wealth accumulates in the hands of a few. Inevitably, economic cooperation with Iran flows into the hands of the kleptocrats. This is because large parts of the Iranian economy are nationalised. Estimates put the figure at between 70 and nearly 90 per cent. The economy is largely controlled by the government, military conglomerates and religious foundations. Raisi, the current president, was also involved in these structures. Before he became president, he was head of the country’s largest religious foundation for several years. The “Astan Quds Razavi” foundation is Iran’s largest landowner and, like all other foundations, is tax-exempt, providing a tax loophole.

These structures reinforce the assumption that Iran is not a reliable partner. After all, the country regularly ranks in the bottom quarter on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2022, the country ranked 147th among the 180 countries listed, with even Russia ten places ahead of the Iranians at 137th.

From common conflict axes to new geographic routes

Russia’s rapprochement with Iran is largely motivated by economic interests. It is not only since the developments of the last year that Moscow has been seeking new allies. A milestone in this development was the first transport of Russian goods via the so-called “North-South Corridor”. This is a 7,200 kilometre network of shipping lanes, railroads and roads for freight transport between India and Russia via Iran, among other countries. Through this corridor, travel time between Russia and India is reduced to almost half, saving not only time but also resources.

Even more significant than the economic benefits are the geostrategic advantages that the corridor offers. Especially since the start of the war against Ukraine and the imposition of severe economic sanctions, Moscow has been particularly interested in a trade corridor over which the US cannot exert any influence. There are neither NATO countries nor US allies along the North-South Corridor. The Central Asian states bordering the Caspian Sea belong primarily to the Russian sphere of influence. And last but not least, Iran is also a geopolitical rival of the US, which itself has suffered from American sanctions for years. The route may also play a role in the context of increasing Eurasian integration. Moreover, it could play an important part in China’s plans for the “New Silk Road”.

Iran, meanwhile, is implementing further plans for economic rapprochement with Russia and also China. As a result, it should be taken quite seriously as a regional and global player. The country has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the third-largest oil reserves in the world. Even though global trends are moving away from fossil fuels, there is still a great dependence on fossil resources internationally. The fossil fuel industry is a good example of the politicisation of the Iranian economy. For example, the Revolutionary Guard owns the “Khatam-al Anbiya” conglomerate, which is active in the oil and gas industry, construction, banking, agriculture and heavy industry. So it is not surprising that all economic decisions in Iran are at the same time political-strategic in nature.

In February of this year, Raisi ordered the implementation of the law on Iran’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), whose members include China and Russia. Free trade agreements are also already in place with the Eurasian Economic Union, which Iran considers a key player. Even if the trade volumes are still small, it is predicted that they will gradually increase in the coming years. And it is likely that strategic-economic relations will deepen. The states involved will probably not stand in each other’s way. After all, they themselves do not think much of upholding the civil and political rights of the people of their own countries. It is therefore unlikely that they would sanction each other for human rights violations. Rather, at a SCO summit in 2021, the Chinese ruler Xi Jinping called on SCO members to ally against sanctions and attacks by other countries.

Nothing is for free

There is another side to the coin. The two states’ pretty much best friendship comes at a high international political price. Even if states like Iran or Russia repeatedly frame their projects as a supposed contribution to multilateralism and as a counter to “western dominance”, the veracity of these statements may be doubted. Although both states do not openly show their cards, they have repeatedly demonstrated through their political performance that they themselves are striving for power expansion and hegemonic dominance. In doing so, they do not shy away from committing the most serious human rights violations – even against their own people. Of course, these actions have consequences.

The already limited international trust in these regimes is unlikely to recover quickly. This will certainly affect possible economic as well as political cooperation in the future. The question remains, however, as to what the new realities arising from this relationship will mean for international peace and human rights. The outlook is not rosy. There is, however, one small glimmer of hope. In Iran, the civilian population has proven that it is willing to pay a high price to free itself from the brutal regime. And in Ukraine, it is also the civilian population that is demonstrating in an exemplary way that the fight for freedom against the Russian invasion concerns everyone.

If we want to write positively about this tireless effort in the history books, it is up to the international community to focus more specifically on the concerns of civil society in the future. After all, conflicts and catastrophes are likely to happen and do not simply fall from the sky. This raises the question of whether we should merely stand by and watch new friendships between autocratic states, or whether we should find a decisive strategy with which we not only react to grievances, but also anticipate and prevent them.

Raze Baziani is a legal expert and political scientist working as a legal advisor and freelance journalist, currently based in The Hague. She specialises in the law of international economic relations, with a particular focus on the Caucasus and the Middle East.

Iran, Russia, Ukraine, War