Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi, founder and president of the American-Iranian Council and a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, told Sputnik that what Washington really fears is its adversaries uniting and forming an “eastern NATO” capable of standing against the Brussels-based alliance.
“This story is long, it has been for some time that the Americans have been very concerned with the cooperation between Iran and Russia. In fact, just two days ago, another senator, Senator Jim Risch, who is also a conservative senator [from Idaho], released a statement also saying that he is concerned with Iran, particularly now that the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], as President [Joe] Biden has said, is dead, the administration should have an Iran policy, and that the present policy of strategic ambiguity is not working.”
“Strategic ambiguity here means that your enemy can’t figure out what you may do next, that you basically go with the moment and with surprise action. So, he is a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch. And now [Republican Senator from Texas] Ted Cruz has come and said that he wants to support a bill that will sanction Iran and Russia for cooperation on basically military cooperation and particularly targeted toward the war in Ukraine.”
“In the meantime, of course, it is surprising that Mr. Cruz is focusing on Iran-Russia, but his colleague, Jim Risch, in that statement focuses on Iran-China cooperation. So in a way, the Republican Party, the party that opposes Joe Biden, has Iran in the middle, and on two sides, China and Russia. And it feels like Iran's cooperation with both of these countries is strategically dangerous to American interests and its future dominance of that part of the world.”
Amirahmadi noted that while Iran has maintained a “traditional policy of nonalignment … in practice, any time a war has started - World War I or World War II, in both cases, Iran got involved. Not that Iran wanted that, the warring forces pushed Iran into the war. So Iran became a theater of war in both wars because of its strategic location, particularly vis-a-vis Russia.”
Indeed, he noted that next time around, the US is likely concerned they won’t be able to force Iran into their camp or to deal with the Iranian government separately if it is “ strategically on the side of China and Russia.”
“It makes it much more difficult for them to occupy Iran in a fight against Russia or China. They are particularly concerned that Russia, China, Iran, and a few other countries may indeed form a new type of eastern NATO that will indeed balance this North Atlantic military alliance. The concern is strategic and it is based on future developments, particularly a wider war in which they don't want Russia, Iran, and China to be on the same side.”
“At the same time, they know that they cannot just make this happen, that they cannot order or force Iran or Russia to stop cooperating. What they wanted to do is to weaken both sides, so that their alliance is an alliance of the weak. So they are using sanctions to further weaken Iran and Russia, so that that alliance will be the alliance of the weak nations and therefore less effective.”
Amirahmadi pointed out that Biden and his Republican opponents largely agree on who America’s enemies are, and that the disagreement is over whether to pursue a “policy of engagement with partners and isolating others” or to deal with US adversaries “directly through a frontal attack.”
“It suggests that certain power sectors in the US think that America has to become increasingly ready for a third war, that there is absolutely no other way to control the East, and particularly China and Russia, if they are not militarily confronted,” he said.
“That is, they cannot do it economically. They cannot do it by Democratic propaganda. They cannot do it by getting other countries against them through proxy wars and so on," the professor said, pointing out that whether or not "the Americans like it," the majority of countries have either "not taken sides" or gone ahead and backed the China-Russia alliance and Russia's special military operation.
"Only a few have taken sides with the US and Europe. So they feel isolated themselves."
Turning back to Cruz’s proposed bill to sanction Iranian and Russian military and infrastructure assets connected to the conflict in Ukraine, the Rutgers professor cast doubts on its ability to actually be effective.
“Actually, I think the sanctions are meaningless,” he said.
“I'm not sure if they really can target and specifically say ‘this bank or this ship or port is involved.’ For example, there is no port between Iran and Ukraine. So Iran will never be directly involved in anything that has to do with ports,” he noted. “It is going to be tough for them to identify any sanctionable actions, banks, ships, ports, and so on.”
“Iran goes through Russia. Iran has nothing to do directly with Ukraine. There is no border, there is no sea - there is nothing. That, I think, is going to be more on paper. And it would just be something that will make the Republican Party stay oppositional and tell the voters that they did something and that they are opposing Biden,” he observed.
“I think these Republican senators and others on the Republican Party side, whatever they do against Iran, Russia, China, it's really designed to target the Biden administration. It is a war between the two parties. It's just amazing how bad this division within the United States has become,” he pointed out.
“Certainly, the Republican Party members of the Senate will support this cause, most likely. I'm not sure if the Democratic Party members will support it, because it will be like a war against their own party. This is designed as a war against the Democratic Party, because they know that what so far they have done is to increasingly move Iran towards Russia, Iran toward China, and away from the West. I have been in US-Iran relations for 40 years. Sanctions have never had a major impact. I mean, they certainly have an impact, but they didn't have the impact that they wanted from them, meaning to change behavior. These sanctions, previous sanctions will never change Iran's behavior, as it hasn't changed Russia's behavior,” Amirahmadi said.
Turning to the $1.6 billion deal signed on Wednesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to construct the Rasht-Astara Railway, Amirahmadi said the International North-South Transport Corridor that it will be a part of will help to address a lack of transportation infrastructure across the Caspian Sea and Caucasus regions.
“Iran-Russia trade relations are increasing, but they are constrained by a lack of railroads and transportation generally. The purpose is to get the national railway system connected to this piece of railway, which still hasn't been built, but then you will have a complete sort of East-West and West-North connection. That is a very important piece of railway. And of course it will also increase the trade relationship between Russia and Iran, but also it will be an important railway for the Iran-Azerbaijan relationship, the Iran-Turkey relationship. It is a very major railway. The only way that railway can be used against sanctions is because that railway will certainly increase trade relations. And any movement, it doesn't matter – trade, military, anything – the movement of goods goes between Iran and Russia. And that's very important.”