Iran's Election, and the Tehran-Moscow Alliance

Would a new Iranian president change the complexion of relations with the United States?

That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s also the hope in Washington and elsewhere. With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in another term as president after the June 12th elections, the thinking goes, there will simply be more nationalist and anti-Semitic bombast; in contrast, a new president will doubtlessly continue to embrace uranium enrichment, but will be less reliant politically on an antagonistic relationship with the U.S.

Whatever the case, the president ultimately is not Iran’s principal power. That position in society is held by Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who ultimately balances Iran’s various religious, commercial and political forces, and forms the consensus that we see as Iranian policy. He is whom President Barack Obama is directing his diplomacy.

That’s more or less what was laid out today by Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council and author of the award-winning Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States.

Parsi addressed a small group at the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington, where he argued against any further hardening of economic sanctions against Iran (there is a push to block refined oil products from Iran, whose refineries product far less fuel than the country requires). Parsi argued that such a move would work against U.S. interests, driving Iran away from the negotiating table, while doing nothing to loosen its resolve to go its own way on nuclear development, Hezbollah and so on.

I filmed a clip of Parsi’s reply to a question on Iran and Russia’s tactical alliance. While he didn’t predict the disintegration of the alliance, he did note that it’s built on soft sand, given the two nations’ long and deep distrust.