KARACHI: Despite having an asymmetrical relationship in the past, Iran and Russia are getting closer to each other. With the rise of the militant Islamic State group and ever since last year’s attack in Paris, there’s a new perception of Iran in the West. But for that perception to change entirely, certain challenges would be required to overcome.

This was the gist of the arguments of a lecture delivered by Dr Clement Therme, Research Fellow, School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, France, at a local hotel on Wednesday afternoon. The lecture titled ‘The Iran-Russian entente: marriage of convenience or strategic partnership’ was part of Alliance Francaise’s Open Doors series of interaction with Pakistani civil society, organised by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations and Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi.

Dr Therme said the Russian-Iran relations were a topic of discussion in western academic circles since the Great Game of the 19th century. There was a time when the West thought of Iran as a threat, but the perception was now changing mainly because of the rise of the IS, he said. Last year’s attack in Paris brought Russia and Iran closer to each other, he said. In the 1990s, too, Iran followed Russian guidelines during the Afghanistan war because of the western embargo and Russia in exchange provided Iran with military equipment, he said. The Islamic Revolution was the first step to strengthening relationship between the two countries, he said.

Dr Therme said Russia and Iran fought two wars in the 19th century. In the 16th century, he said, during the Safavid dynasty’s rule, Russia and Iran fought against the Ottoman Empire. Since the 19th century there had been an asymmetric relationship between the two countries where Russia had been a superpower and Iran a regional one, he said. However, analysts had been missing one important point, he said. Even in the 1970s when it was thought that Iran was a US ally, Iran was exporting gas to Europe. The situation was complex; it was an unequal relationship with the US, he said.

Dr Therme said the anti-western sentiment in Iran and Russia, and later being anti-Salafi and anti-Wahabi, brought them closer. Today the Middle East was becoming a more important region, he said, which was why from 2013 international diplomacy had started looking at it in a different way. The rise of the IS was significant for Iran because of its bordering country Iraq, therefore it attached importance to military relationship with Russia, he said. Unlike former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ideas, today Europe had realised that a peaceful solution was needed as it couldn’t afford a new war in the Middle East, he said.

Dr Therme said Russia supported Iran’s nuclear deal with the West. In the short term Russian economy would benefit from it, but in the long term, if the ties between the US and Iran normalised, it might prove to be a problem for Russia — European countries depended on the American market. However, the rise of the IS had caused a change of perception about Iran in the West as it now considered Iran a potential partner in the war against terror, he said, adding there’s a new discourse in Europe and the tendency would increase.

Dr Therme said there were some challenges related to the subject that needed to be overcome. Ideology was the first challenge which was part of diplomacy both in Iran and Russia, he said. He said there had been a dialogue in Russia about cultural differences. The second challenge, he said, was to do with Israel which had influence over the West. Obama wouldn’t be able to revive full diplomacy with Iran, he said. The next challenge, he said, was western values and of the human rights discourse in the West that could be a hurdle in the way of improving Iran and Russia’s ties.

Dr Therme said in the next decade we would see a continuity of the perception as the reopening of Iran was seen both towards east and west. Recently the Chinese president visited Iran; China and Russia in the past had resisted US pressure, he said.

After the lecture, the floor was opened for a question-and-answer session. Replying to a question about the IS, Dr Therme said Russia, Iran and European countries wanted to fight the IS, the non-state actor. The problem was the method of fighting, he said. Russia and Iran supported the Syrian state, but the legitimacy of the state was a question, he said. Russia’s military intervention in Syria was legal, but was it legitimate, he asked. On the question whether the shift in perception would have any difference on the West’s attitude towards Israel, he said he didn’t see any change in that context because of history. It’s in the DNA of the West to support Israel, he said. He said Europe was part of military alliances and the European market depended on the US, and it’s not going to change.

In response to another question, he said the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq was disastrous, but the new American diplomacy in the region was realistic. He said East Europe too would like to have a relationship with Iran because it wanted to import gas. On the issue of where the IS was getting ammunition and power from, he said if he had an answer for that he would be a rich man. He nonetheless explained that political vacuum created by the weakening of states in Iraq and Syria caused the IS to come to the fore. The US was not going to wage a new war, Turkey was focused on Kurds, Saudi Arabia was focused on Yemen and Iran was focused on Iraq, he said.

Earlier, A. M. Zubairi, retired ambassador Shahid Amin and Prof Dr Uzma Shujat also spoke.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2016