1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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When President Barack Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev pledged last month in London to "chart a fresh start" in U.S.-Russian relations, Iran's nuclear program was among the key areas of cooperation. Forging a common position on Iran will be a difficult task, however, as Russian strategic interests in Iran diverge
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sharply from those of the United States. The Obama administration has promised "crippling sanctions" if dialogue with Iran fails, but Russian support of such measures seems unlikely. Nuclear technology and military hardware contracts with Iran bring billions of dollars into Russia's coffers, while the Kremlin's opposition to sanctions in the United Nations Security Council has boosted Russia's image as a world power equal to the United States, a protector of a key Muslim state, and a central player in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration hinted at a "grand bargain" of scaling down or abandoning missile defense in Europe in exchange for Russian assistance in addressing the Iranian nuclear threat. Will that be enough to persuade Russia to give up all the geostrategic benefits of its current stance on Iran? How does Russia define its interests in the Iranian nuclear problem? Are there grounds for agreement between the United States and Russia on Iran? At this AEI event, a group of leading experts on Russian and U.S. policy toward Iran will address these and other questions.
| 11:45 a.m. |
Registration |
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| 12:00 p.m. |
Panelists: |
John R. Bolton, AEI |
| Eric Edelman |
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| Pavel Felgenhauer, Novaya Gazeta and Jamestown Foundation |
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| Timothy Morrison, Office of U.S. Senator Jon Kyl |
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| Stephen Rademaker, BGR Group |
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| Moderator: |
Leon Aron, AEI |
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| 2:00 | Adjournment | |
WASHINGTON, MAY 16, 2009--One of the key areas of cooperation President Barack Obama identified early on for the "reset" of U.S. –Russia relations was Iran's nuclear program. Despite the "grand bargain" hinted at by Obama administration--scaling down or giving up the missile defense system in Eastern Europe in exchange for Russian assistance in stopping the Iranian nuclear threat--little progress has been made on this contentious topic. At a May 13 event at AEI, experts discussed Russia's interests in Iran and the obstacles and possibilities for cooperation between the United States and Russia.
John R. Bolton of AEI argued that the current administration's policies on Russia and Iran are misguided. In his view, Iran is on the verge of achieving nuclear weapons and the Kremlin appears both unconcerned and unwilling to support U.S. action to deter it. The administration's current focus on bilateral conversations with Iran and arms control with Russia fails to address the problems at hand. According to Bolton, "The conclusion of the Obama administration policy is that the United States will be weaker globally vis-à-vis Russia, we will be weaker in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region vis-à-vis Iran, and that peace and security will be more and more threatened."
Eric Edelman, a visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies, discussed the U.S. and Russian approaches to missile defense and Iran's nuclear program. When the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002, the United States and Russia appeared to agree that rogue nations were the primary threat to both countries and America's action would not jeopardize Russian national security. In 2006, the United States applied the same principle to missile defense, but Russia protested strongly, calling the systems in Eastern Europe a direct threat. Edelman also identified two key obstacles to U.S.-Russian agreement on Iran's nuclear program: the current political and economic situation in Russia, in which personal interests override national interests, and the common base in anti-Americanism that the Iranian and Russian regimes share.
Moscow-based defense analyst and Novaya Gazeta columnist Pavel Felgenhauer presented Russia's perspective of its interests in Iran and its broader foreign policy view. Russia bases its foreign policy not on principles or personal interest, but on a quid pro quo policy. Since it does not view a nuclear Iran as a direct threat (Iran's rhetoric is anti-American and anti-Israeli, not anti-Russian), Russia has no incentive to help the United States unless the latter provides one. Though Russia does view the missile defense system, which it believes to be a façade for nuclear-tipped missile sites with first-strike capability, as a threat, it is not big enough to exchange for Iran. "[The Russian government] would be interested, say, to help on Iran in exchange for Georgia," Felgenhauer speculated, "if the United States tacitly recognizes that Georgia is Russian, and part of the Russian sphere of influence."
Timothy Morrison, the national security policy adviser for Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), laid out the current perspective on Capitol Hill. Nuclear terrorism is the most likely threat to U.S. national security, and the achievement of nuclear weapons by Iran is perceived as the tipping point of a proliferation cascade in the Middle East. Morrison argued that even though Russia is not siding with the United States, the United States does have both carrots and sticks to use to try to gain Russian cooperation. The carrots include repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, arms control, and WTO membership, while missile defense, military-to-military cooperation with Ukraine and Georgia, support for energy projects that circumvent Russia, and sanctions against companies doing business with the Iranian energy sector are all sticks the United States could use.
Stephen Rademaker, senior counsel at the BGR Group, predicted that the Obama administration will continue to face the same frustrations with Russia that the United States has faced for the past decade because of the difference in underlying interests. Russia would prefer Iran not achieve nuclear weapon status, but will take political, economic, and diplomatic advantage of the situation in the meantime rather than cooperate with the United States to stop it. The Obama administration's current policy is to focus on arms control and the START treaty in order to make Russia feel better about the relationship, and then move on to Iran. Though the overall policy is not very different from that of the Bush administration, it assumes that Russia shares U.S. interests and goals. Recent comments by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin prove this is not true.
--KARA FLOOK
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Speaker biographies
Leon Aron was born in Moscow and came to the United States as a refugee from the Soviet Union in June 1978 at the age of twenty-four. In addition to writing Russian Outlook, AEI’s quarterly essay on the economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet evolution, Mr. Aron has contributed numerous articles on Russian affairs to leading U.S. and Russian newspapers and magazines. Among the topics he has covered are the political, economic, and ideological factors shaping Russian foreign policy and U.S.-Russian relations, and the social, political, and economic facets of Vladimir Putin’s presidency and premiership. Mr. Aron’s frequent television and radio interviews have included CBS News’s 60 Minutes and NPR’s All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. He is the author of the first full-length scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s, 2000), and Russia’s Revolution: Essays 1989–2006 (AEI Press, 2007). He is currently working on a book about the ideas and ideals that inspired and shaped the latest Russian revolution (1987–91).
John R. Bolton is a senior fellow at AEI, where he studies foreign policy and international organizations. Ambassador Bolton served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. From May 2001 to May 2005, he was the under secretary of state for arms control and international security. Prior to this, Ambassador Bolton was the senior vice president of AEI and also held a number of positions in public service, including assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, 1989-93; assistant attorney general, 1985-89; assistant administrator for program and policy coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 1982-83; and USAID general counsel, 1981-82. From 1983 to 1985, Ambassador Bolton was an associate and then member of Covington & Burling. He is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (Simon and Schuster, 2007).
Eric Edelman retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service on May 1, 2009. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a senior associate at the International Security Program of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Ambassador Edelman has served in senior positions at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. He was the under secretary of defense for policy (August 2005–January 2009), served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Turkey and Finland, and was principal deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. He has been chief of staff to the deputy secretary of state, a special assistant to the under secretary of state for political affairs, and special assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz. His other assignments include the State Department Operations Center, Prague, Moscow, and Tel Aviv, where he was a member of the U.S. Middle East Delegation to the West Bank/Gaza Autonomy Talks.
Pavel Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based defense analyst and a columnist for Novaya Gazeta. He served as researcher and senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Mr. Felgenhauer has published numerous articles on Russian foreign and defense policies, military doctrine, arms trade, and the military-industrial complex. From 1991 to 1993, he was a defense analyst and correspondent for Nezavisimaya Gazeta ("Independent Newspaper"), and from 1993 to 1999, he was a member of the editorial board and the chief defense correspondent of the Moscow daily Segodnya ("Today"). From May 1994 to 2005, Mr. Felgenhauer published a regular column on defense in the English-language local daily the Moscow Times. In July 2006, he joined the staff of Novaya Gazeta. He continues to provide regular commentary on Russia’s defense-related problems to many other local and international media organizations and is a weekly contributor to the Jamestown Foundation’s publication the Eurasia Daily Monitor.
Timothy Morrison is the national security policy adviser for Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who is the assistant Republican leader in the U.S. Senate. Senator Kyl has been a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and is the administrative cochair of the Senate’s National Security Working Group. Mr. Morrison advises Senator Kyl on defense, foreign affairs, and intelligence policy. Prior to joining Senator Kyl’s office in January 2007, Mr. Morrison served as legislative director for Representative Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.).
Stephen Rademaker is senior counsel to the BGR Group (formerly Barbour Griffith & Rogers) and a leader of BGR’s international practice, representing U.S. and foreign clients in Washington and internationally. Mr. Rademaker came to BGR from the staff of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), where he served as policy director for national security affairs and senior counsel. In 2002, Mr. Rademaker was confirmed by the Senate as an assistant secretary of state, and from then until 2006, he headed at various times three bureaus of the U.S. Department of State, including the Bureau of Arms Control and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Immediately prior to joining the Department of State, Mr. Rademaker was chief counsel to the Select Committee on Homeland Security of the U.S. House of Representatives. Other government positions he has held include deputy staff director and chief counsel to the House Committee on International Relations, general counsel of the Peace Corps, associate counsel to the president in the Office of Counsel to the President, and deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council. A lawyer by training, he clerked for the Honorable James L. Buckley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and was an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling. In May 2008, Mr. Rademaker was appointed by the congressional leadership as one of nine members of the U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism. In addition, he served as the U.S. representative on the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2003 through December 2008.
