Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov articulated his country’s official position towards the Third Gulf War, which began with the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, during an Ambassadorial Roundtable last week. He began by lamenting that it “can have dire consequences for the entire world, undermine global stability and economy, upend everything which used to be called globalisation, and viewed as a process for bringing about prosperity for the entire humankind. All this has been destroyed.”
He then segued into acknowledging the internal debates with the US over its goals as well as the contradictory statements thereto from its leading officials. In his view, “one of the goals consisted of sowing division among countries within this region, i.e., the Persian Gulf countries, Iran and its Arab neighbours.” This has admittedly been achieved to an extent and correspondingly impedes Russia’s master plan of promoting a Collective Security Concept for the Gulf that it’s worked on for years already.
According to Lavrov, “Each participating country would set out the threats or the risks to its security as it sees them. Then we could begin with an agreement on transparency in military activities; transparency and perhaps limitations on the number of exercises that each country along the Gulf coast conducts. That would include mutual visits by military personnel and joint economic and trade projects.” That’s obviously not going to happen anytime soon, let alone at all, given the Third Gulf War.
Be that as it may, Lavrov described both the Arabs and Iranians as Russia’s strategic partners with whom it sympathizes due to the suffering caused by the war that was unleashed by the US-Israeli duopoly, which might possibly come to receive support from NATO if some senior officials get what they want. Russia is thus calling for an immediate end to their aggression and is disappointed that its Gulf partners are reportedly considering sponsoring a UNSC Resolution that condemns Iran but not the US and Israel.
He instead suggested that they follow the US’ lead from last year when it sponsored a UNSC Resolution calling for an end to the Ukrainian Conflict as soon as possible. Their shared US ally will of course “seize upon such an initiative” as the abovementioned one that they’re reportedly considering sponsoring because it “will only divide countries” even more, he said, so the odds of them following his advice are low. Nevertheless, Lavrov reaffirmed Russia’s interest in mediating, which Putin earlier made apparent.
Near the end of the event, he also reaffirmed Russia’s support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which it considers to be the reason for regional instability. He then explained Russia’s abstention from last fall’s UNSC Resolution on the basis that his country didn’t want to block it after its Arab partners supported it. All in all, Lavrov’s articulation of Russia’s official position towards the Third Gulf War and related issues like the Palestinian one was a timely reminder of its actual policy.
Many mistakenly believe that Russia is allied with Iran against the Gulf Kingdoms and Israel, but the reality is that it’s always carefully balanced between them, though that doesn’t mean that Russia won’t call out Israeli aggression against Iran and Arab hypocrisy like Lavrov just did several times. Russia clearly sympathizes with Iran and might even be sharing intelligence with it for targeting the US’ regional assets, but ultimately, Russia wants to mediate an end to the conflict before it spirals out of control.
