It’s a scorpion battle inside a vortex of distorted mirrors inside a circus. So let’s start with the mirrors in the circus.

The non-entity that passes for Ukrainian Foreign Minister traveled to Brussels to be courted by US Secretary of State Blinken and NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg.

At best, that’s circus shadowplay. Much more than NATO advisers in a frantic revolving door in Kiev, the real shadowplay is MI6 actually working very close with President Zelensky.

Zelensky’s warmongering script comes directly from MI6’s Richard Moore. Russian intel is very much aware of all the fine print. Glimpses were even carefully leaked to a TV special on the Rossiya 1 channel.

I confirmed it with diplomatic sources in Brussels. British media also got wind of it – but obviously was told to further distort the mirrors, blaming everything on, what else, “Russian aggression”.

German intel is practically non-existent in Kiev. Those NATO advisers remain legion. Yet no one talks about the explosive MI6 connection.

Careless whispers in Brussels corridors swear that MI6 actually believes that in the case of a volcanic but as it stands still preventable hot war with Russia, continental Europe would burn and Brexitland would be spared.

Dream on. Now back to the circus.

Oh, you’re so provocative

Both Little Blinken and NATO straw man Stoltenberg parroted the same script in Brussels after talking to the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.

That was part of a NATO “special meeting” on Ukraine – where some Eurocrat must have told a bunch of extra clueless Eurocrats how they would be carbonized on the spot by Russian TOS-1 Buratino’s terrifying explosive warheads if NATO tried anything funny.

Listen to the sound of Blinken yappin’: Russian actions are “provocative”.

Well, his staff certainly did not hand him a copy of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu examining step by step the deployment of the annual US Army DEFENDER-Europe 21: “The main forces are concentrated in the Black Sea and Baltic region.”

Now listen to the sound of Stoltenberg yappin’: We pledge “unwavering support” to Ukraine.

Woof woof. Now go back to play in your sandboxes.

No, not yet. Little Blinken threatened Moscow with “consequences” whatever happens in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov’s infinite patience is nearly Daoist. Sun Tzu’s Art of War, by the way, is a Daoist masterpiece. Peskov’s answer to Blinken: “It is simply not necessary for us to go around forever proclaiming: ‘I am the greatest!’ The more one does this sort of thing, in fact, the more people doubt it…”

When in doubt, call the irreplaceable Andrei Martyanov – who always tells it like it is. The Crash Test Dummy gang in D.C. still does not get it – although some Deep State pros do.

Here’s Martyanov:

As I am on record constantly – the United States never fought a war with its Command and Control system under the relentless sustained fire impact and its rear attacked and disorganized. Conventionally, the United States cannot win against Russia in Europe, at least Eastern part of it and Biden Admin better wake up to the reality that it may, indeed, not survive any kind of escalation and, in fact, modern Kalibrs, 3M14Ms, as a matter of fact, have a range of a 4,500 kilometers, as well as 5,000+ kilometer range of X-101 cruise missiles, which will have no issues with penetrating North American airspace when launched by Russia’s strategic bombers without even leaving the safety of Russia’s airspace.

The Patrushev effect

The circus went on with the phone call from “Biden” – that is, Crash Test Dummy with an earpiece and a teleprompter in front of the phone – to President Putin.

Call it the Patrushev effect.

In his stunning interview to Kommersant, Triple Yoda Patrushev mentioned a very civilized late March phone call he had with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Of course there’s no smokin’ gun, but if anyone would come up with the face-saving idea of a Biden-Putin phone call that would have been Sullivan.

The spin from Washington and Moscow is only slightly divergent. The Americans highlight that “Biden” – actually the deciding combo behind him – wants to build “a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, consistent with US interests.”

The Kremlin said that Biden “expressed interest in normalizing bilateral relations.”

Away from all this fog, what really matters is Patrushev-Sullivan. That has to do with Washington telling Turkey that US warships would be transiting the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea. Sullivan must have told Patrushev that no, they won’t be “active” in Donbass. And Patrushev told Sullivan, OK, we won’t incinerate them.

There are absolutely no illusions in Moscow that this putative Biden-Putin summit in a distant future will ever take place. Especially after Daoist Peskov had made it very clear that “no one will allow America to speak with Russia from a position of strength.” If that sounds like a line straight out of Yang Jiechi – who made shark fin’s soup out of Blinken-Sullivan in Alaska – that’s because it does.

Kiev, predictably, remains stuck in circus mode. After getting sharp messages from Mr. Iskander, Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Buratino, they changed their mind, or at least pretend to, and are now saying they don’t want war.

And here comes the intersection between circus and the serious stuff. The “Biden” combo never said, explicitly, on the record, that they don’t want war. On the contrary: they are sending those warships to the Black Sea and – circus again! – designating an envoy, Ministry of Silly Walks-style, whose only job is to derail the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

So the cliffhanger – like a teaser for Snowpiercer – is what happens when Nord Stream 2 is completed.

But before that, there’s something even more momentous: next Wednesday, on his speech to the Russian Security Council, President Putin will lay down the law.

It’s Minsk 2, stupid

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has struck a much less Daoist note than Peskov: “The United States is our enemy, doing everything to undermine Russia’s position in the international arena, we do not see other elements in their approach to us. These are our conclusions”.

That’s stone to the bone realpolitik. Ryabkov knows the Hegemon’s “non agreement-capable” mindset inside out. So an added dimension to his observation is its direct connection to the only solution for Ukraine: the Minsk 2 agreements.

Putin reiterated Minsk 2 on his live teleconference with Merkel and Macron – and certainly to “Biden” in their phone call. The Beltway, the EU and NATO are all aware of it. Minsk 2 was signed by Ukraine, France and Germany and certified by the UN Security Council. If Kiev violates it, Russia – as a member of the UNSC – must enforce it.

Kiev has been violating Minsk 2 for months now; it refuses to implement it. As a faithful Hegemon satrapy, they are also not “agreement-capable”. Yet now they are seeing the – firepower – writing on the wall if they as much as think of starting a blitzkrieg against Donbass.

The open secret in the whole Ukraine/Donbass wilderness of mirrors under the circus tent is of course China. Yet Ukraine, in a sane world, would not only be part of a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridor, but also part of the Russian Greater Eurasia project. China specialist Nikolai Vavilov recognizes the importance of BRI, but is also certain Russia is above all defending its own interests.

Ideally, Ukraine/Donbass would be inserted in the overall revival of the Silk Roads – as in internal Central Eurasian trade based and developed taking into consideration Eurasia-wide demand. Eurasia integration – in both the Chinese and Russian vision – are all about interconnected economies via inter-regional trade.

So it’s not by accident that the Hegemon – on the verge of becoming an irrelevant player across Eurasia – is going no holds barred to harass and try to smash the continental integration by all means available.

In this context, manipulating a failed state to meet its own doom is just (circus) business.

While Trump still draws nearly unfathomable crowds for his rallies he is staring at an abyss of bad decisions in front of him which will see him either reverse course on all of his signature wins with his base over the past year – getting tough on Iran and China, going after evil socialists in Venezuela – or face a global economic meltdown which his daily Surreality Show is fomenting.

Trump refuses to take responsibility for anything that is happening. Everything is someone else’s fault.

Trade balance? China. Europe. Mexico. Canada.

Unrest in the Middle East? Iran. ISIS. Hezbollah. Russia.

Collapse and conflict in Ukraine? Russia.

Border Security? The Democrats.

Interest Rates? The Fed.

His inability to see how his moves affect events in the context of the global arena is his greatest weakness. It should have been a strength, his lack of shame. But it isn’t. Because now he’s gotten himself so far over-extended on Iran he’s been exposed as all bark and no bite.

He’s pushed Iran into a corner and from that corner they decided to finally strike back by downing a Global Hawk drone flying in full stealth mode over Iranian airspace if the Iranian side of the story is to be believed.

And regardless of the specifics of the situation, since we will never know the truth of the matter, the outcome and the way the narratives were handled it’s clear that Iran was sending a very strong message to the US.

Not one more inch.

Because while the US is more than capable of wiping Iran off the map for all intents and purposes, the truth is that for all of that capability, the after-effects of using it would be devastating for the world.

In common parlance the term is ‘blowback.’

The Western financial system is very much a paper tiger. And I do believe someone finally whispered in Trump’s ear after the drone was shot down that if he strikes Iran the consequences would be devastating for everyone.

Remember, Iran has nothing left to lose financially. The US has tried to take it all away. If the sanctions are working they are only doing so to accelerate the timetable which brought us to this point.

And a man who has nothing left to lose is a man who could easily lose it and take everyone with him. Pepe Escobar wrote about this at length recently. And while I agree with his overall thesis I think he’s out over his skis about the numbers themselves.

Suffice it to say that with nearly $13 trillion in negative-yielding debt, Deutsche Bank functionally insolvent and oil supplies vulnerable to supply shock that the aftermath of a series of attacks on infrastructure around the region, that over-leveraged capital markets trading at nose-bleed prices could collapse quickly triggering cascading defaults around the globe.

Regardless of the specifics, chaos would be the order of the day and markets hate chaos.

So Iran shot down that drone knowing full well that any US response would be disproportionate, to use Trump’s words. It took a level of character I didn’t think he or anyone else thought he had in calling off the airstrikes.

So I’ll give him credit for that. He needs to do more of it. And his signaling to Iran that he’s willing to talk with no pre-conditions is proof that he’s got negotiations on his mind. But Iran can no more come to the table with Trump than Trump can back down on his bluster and sabre-rattling with Iran.

Iran is right to say they won’t negotiate at gunpoint. This is especially true when it has been revealed that the guns themselves can’t actually be fired. Their leadership would collapse overnight if they began talks with Trump. That drone is now a rallying point for Iranians to support their government on in the short-term.

They gain nothing by coming to the table. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif went on a charm tour earlier this year to make Iran’s case and was roundly ignored by the US The opportunity was there then and the message from Iran was ignored.

What’s changed now that Trump wants to talk?

The sanctions are working? Please, don’t make me laugh. Russia’s National Security Advisor Nikolai Patrushev made it clear in his remarks that Russia stands behind Iran and that it will not tolerate any more aggression by the US I’m sure John Bolton’s mustache didn’t want to hear that.

“In the context of the statements made by our partners with regard to a major regional power, namely Iran, I would like to say the following: Iran has always been and remains our ally and partner, with which we are consistently developing relations both on bilateral basis and within multilateral formats,” Patrushev said after the trilateral meeting.

“This is why we believe that it is inadmissible to describe Iran as a major threat to regional security and, moreover, to put it on par with the Islamic State or any other terrorist organization,” Patrushev stated.

Russia’s National Security Advisor calling Iran an ally was significant. And I have to think that given some of the circumstances surrounding the drone that part of Iran’s message was 1) we have better weapons than you think we had and 2) the Russians gave them to us while denying it.

So, if you are coming after us it will have to be at a level that will make everyone outside of K-Street very uncomfortable. Trump will literally have to ‘go big or go home.’ Given the circumstances that seems unlikely.

It is in Russia’s long-term best interest to keep Iran stable and relatively prosperous. They cannot afford a failed state and chaos in Iran. Note the timing of violent uprisings in Georgia. Don’t think these things are related? Think again.

Keeping the Russians busy with multiple hotspots is the plan here. But Russia isn’t confused about this strategy. Expect in the coming weeks to see more direct support from Russia to Iran. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Goods-for-Oil program hasn’t already been expanded and that Iran is one of those countries the Bank of Russia mentioned wanting access to Russia’s version of SWIFT, SPFS, to clear transactions sanctioned by the US

It’s not like it would matter one bit to most Russian banks since they are already sanctioned by the US in the first place.

Once that happens and it’s clear the US will not stop Iranian tankers from sailing, all that remains is for the proper financial intermediaries to be put in place to keep the US off balance and Iran’s oil will flow.

The sanctions will be in effect, Iran will be starved of dollars and the medium-term pain will be acute. But it will be another move away from the dollar settling the trade of oil.

So back to my original question, where does Trump go from here? Iran won’t allow him to save face. I don’t have a good answer for that but Iran is betting that re-election will stay his hand for another year. He can and should start with firing the architects of this failed ‘maximum pressure’ policy and send everyone a clear signal that he’s ready to climb off the mountain they’ve built for him.

As long as the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia look the other way while Iran ‘smuggles’ its oil everything will calm down. If they don’t then things will get ugly from here for all involved.

President Putin’s opening speech was read aloud by Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, which explained the forum’s agenda and objectives, namely, to create a positive atmosphere that should succeed in reducing various areas of tension between countries around the globe.

“I expect your communication to be substantial and fruitful, and will help achieve our common goal of creating a reliable, flexible, indivisible and equal for all security system at the regional and global level. US exit from arms reduction treaties undermines global security. This forum has fully proved to be in demand and effective, ensuring a dialogue on countering global challenges. The meeting’s agenda addresses problems requiring joint solutions and collective action, overcoming the consequences of armed conflict and humanitarian problems, as well as ensuring information security.”

The most important news of the day coming from Ufa was revealed by Tass:

“A high-ranking official from the US National Security Council will take part in an international meeting of high security representatives at Ufa on June 18-20, Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Venediktov said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily on Sunday.”

This disclosure is particularly relevant as the US has not sent any representatives to attend the international security meeting in the last four years. This is an event where leading figures can meet and discuss ways of overcoming disagreements in spite of any current difficulties that may exist between countries, such as between Iran and the US.

The Ufa forum has drawn little attention from the international press and has even been little reported on in the host country, with only Tass putting out a couple of reports on the gathering. The lack of media exposure is probably intentional, with the lack of a media spotlight allowing for diplomacy to calmly do its work without any unnecessary distractions.

The world is at a critical historical juncture, with potential or already volatile situations present on the Korean peninsula, in Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Ukraine, the Arctic, the Persian Gulf, and the Baltic, Black and South China Seas. Other volatile situations can be found in the cyber and information-warfare domains, as well as in the competition in space.

With so many potential flashpoints, a conference to address these dangers is most welcome. The fact that 120 countries have the opportunity to talk and think about possible ways for de-escalation is a rare opportunity that should not be left to go to waste.

Given current global events, the most significant attendees in Ufa are a senior US National Security Council member and the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani. As of now, the only official news comes from Ali Shamkhani’s words concerning the possibility of mediation with the US and the possibility of Iran acquiring weapons systems to fend off US threats. Shamkhani stated:

“We currently face demonstrative threats. Nevertheless, when it comes to air defense of our country, we consider using the foreign potential in addition to our domestic capacities… Mediation is out of question in the current situation. The United States has unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has flouted its obligations and it has introduced illegal sanctions against Iran. The United States should return to the starting point and correct its own mistakes. This process needs no mediation,”

“This [gradually boosting of uranium enrichment and heavy water production beyond the levels outlined in the JCPOA] is a serious decision of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and we will continue doing it step by step until JCPOA violators move toward agreement and return to fulfilling their obligations. [If JCPOA participants do not comply with the deal, Iran will be reducing its commitments] step by step within legal mechanisms that the JCPOA envisions.”

He also accused the US of “exercising pressure on the Islamic Republic through claims that Iran was behind the attack on oil tankers attack in the Gulf of Oman”. Speaking about the possibility of a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, he reiterated that “Iran will protect its borders and repel any encroachment”. The official also stated that “Iran and the United States will not come to war as there is no reason for this war to happen”.

Ali Shamkhani also held an important meeting with his Armenian counterpart to reaffirm how strategic trust and cooperation between Tehran and Yerevan is fundamental to the region, resisting external pressure from third parties. Currently Iran needs all the possible international support it can get in light of tensions with the US. The Ufa forum seems to be the perfect place for Iran to make this happen. The meeting between Ali Shamkhani and his Afghan counterpart, Hamdullah Mohib, seems to reflect this, being another example of how Iran is seeking more political allies.

Afghanistan is a central player in Eurasian integration, and Russia, India, China and Iran are all too keenly aware of the devastation wrought by the American occupation of the country.

The situation in Afghanistan seems to have improved recently, with regional powers increasingly acting independently of Washington’s desire to plunge the country into a perpetual state of chaos and underdevelopment. In fact, the next regional meeting on Afghanistan is set to be held in Tehran, with the participation of all five countries bordering Afghanistan, namely, Iran, Russia, China, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Notably, Shamkhani asked neighboring countries to interact with the opposition in Afghanistan in order to draw them to the negotiating table, thereby limiting the influence of external actors in the country.

The meeting between Mohib and Shamkhani also served to reiterate how strategic cooperation between all relevant parties is fundamental to sustaining progress, peace and development in an area that is fundamental to Eurasian integration.

Ali Shamkhani also released some statements directed at Trump and the current state of Iran-US relations, stating that “[Donald Trump’s America] is the most warmongering country in its history… If a wide range of countries decide to stand up to the illegal US blackmail and bullying, we can make the US retreat and adopt a rational and responsible behavior in the international system.”

Speaking of the US’s weaponization of the banking system and international finance, Shamkhani stated: “No title other than economic terrorism suits this US behavior.” He urged countries to create multilateral mechanisms to break US dominance on the global monetary system. He also pointed out that the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was a blow against the role of diplomacy and dialogue in solving security challenges. However, most countries, he added, were appreciative of Iran’s “wise” behavior in giving diplomacy a chance and were dragging their feet with regard to US pressure to suspend the nuclear deal.

Shamkhani’s words testify to the level of dissatisfaction and annoyance that Iran feels, being treated as it is so aggressively by Washington following years of negotiation to finally agree on the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to the satisfaction of all parties involved.

Guo Shengkun, a Senior Chinese security official who attended the conference, underlined the importance of countries increasing dialogue and cooperation to avoid unnecessary conflicts and trade wars, a pointed reference to Washington’s actions in its trade war against the People’s Republic of China.

His Russian counterpart was even more direct, highlighting Washington’s fear of full-scale Eurasian integration led by China and Russia. Sergey Naryshkin, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, stated: “The US uses methods of hybrid war trying to hamper Russian cooperation, particularly with China. We are witnessing that. Moreover, there is no need to make any effort to see it, it is all happening before our very eyes.”

He also commented on how Washington exploits the US dollar as the global reserve currency for economic warfare. “It seems bewildering that the US continues to be the holder of the main reserve currency while behaving so aggressively and unpredictably. The monopoly position of the dollar in international economic relations has become anachronistic. Gradually, the dollar is becoming toxic.”

The political climate in Ufa seems very serene and inclined to favour dialogue and collaboration, showing how the Eurasian giants China, Russia and Iran are working together with enormous efforts to pacify the region and beyond. The statement of the Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, about new US sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) reveal the profound cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in various fields including terrorism.

“It’s no secret that over the past several years sanctions have become a favored method of the US policy. What is especially alarming is that the restrictions are introduced absolutely arbitrarily, spontaneously and impulsively. Their initiators do not take into account not only the long-term consequences but also the opinion of the closest economic partners… [Regarding US sanctions against the IRGC] The IRGC has made a huge contribution to the fight against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.”

The Ufa meeting is not attracting any particular attention from the mainstream press (no mention of it has been made in the major Western news outlets). While it has been given some coverage by the Russian and Chinese media, most coverage has been given by Iranian media. This is an aspect worth considering given the current geopolitical environment. Moscow and Beijing have no intention of increasing the tension between Washington and other countries. Keeping a low media profile is a way of helping the Ufa forum act in a way that eases global tensions.

A war against Iran is a red line for virtually all forum participants. The fact that the US is represented at the forum at a time of elevated tensions with Iran, especially after having not attended for the previous four years, is a good signal from the Trump administration that it is willing to open dialogue with Iran despite the risk of continued provocations or intentional accidents between the two countries.

The explicit and direct words used by the Russian, Chinese and Iranian representatives suggest a complete coordination on essential issues like terrorism, especially when it is used by the US as a tool against geopolitical opponents around the world, whether it be on Russia’s southern border, in Syria, or in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Terrorism used as tool of imperialism is something that Ufa places at the center of current global problems, trying to limit its impact and effectiveness.

Iran and Russia’s energy ministers met in the Iranian city of Isfahan on Tuesday to continue discussions about an oil-for-goods program in which the proceeds from the sale of Iranian oil would be used to pay for Russian agricultural equipment and products.

The Ufa forum shows the combined power of Russia and China in a multipolar global order. Beijing and Moscow seem to be the only two global superpowers able to mediate and gather countries around a table in spite of increasing tensions.

Putin and Xi Jinping’s ability to de-escalate global tensions in such low-key forum as the one in Ufa (now in its tenth edition) is the only hope we have for avoiding or defusing conflicts and trade wars that may be erupt around the world.

The consultations of Russia’s national security chief Nikolay Patrushev to Tehran on Monday and the ‘working visit’ by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi to Moscow on Wednesday will be keenly watched in the world capitals.An element of uncertainty always remained in the Russian-Iranian ties ever since the revolution in 1979 and the relationship was highly accident-prone. But, this time around, if the relationship lost verve, it because Russia unilaterally consigned it to a state of benign neglect as a matter of expediency.

Why this happened or how this could happen in a country like Russia blessed with great ‘orientalists’ who know Iran’s centrality as a regional power in the Middle East, can be explored, but that will be a complicated voyage of discovery into what Russia’s intellectual climate has become despite the treasure-troves of high caliber intellect it still possesses. The fact is, Russia’s dalliance over the ‘reset’ with the United States practically led to a shutdown of the Iran ties in Moscow’s diplomatic priorities.

The American pressure compelled Moscow to roll back weapon sales to Iran and resort to delaying tactic in the commissioning of Bushehr nuclear power plant. (President Dmitry Medvedev’s weekend telephone conversation with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and his assurance that the Bushehr project will be commissioned on schedule becomes a much-needed confidence-building measure in the present context.) Unfortunately, Russia also began harmonizing with the US over the situation around the Iran nuclear issue, knowing fully well that the nuclear issue was a barely-disguised US attempt to bully Iran and that there was no shred of evidence of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon programme.

At any rate, Tehran continued to view the document signed during Putin’s 2007 visit with nostalgia. Russia’s summary decision to cut off arms supplies and to play hide-and-seek over the commissioning of Bushehr did test Iranian patience, which at times was wearing thin, but Iranian diplomatic temper somehow seemed confident that Moscow would have another leap of faith sooner rather than later.

Certainly, it would have rankled the Iranian sense of national pride that Moscow made Iran a ‘victim’ of its ‘reset’ with the US, but it didn’t show indignation. Somehow, the thinking in Tehran seemed to be that it all formed part of a difficult phase that Russia was passing through, juggling so many balls in the air that human ingenuity cannot possible handle. Tehran seemed convinced that Moscow would ultimately take note of the contradictions in the US-Russia ties. Equally, Tehran viewed the US-Russia reset as a contrived atmospheric that enabled Washington to selectively take help from Russia on various pressing issues. Most important, Iranians were convinced that the US deployment of missile defence systems in a concerted move to establish nuclear superiority and encircle Russia would ultimately compel Moscow to search out for partners in the region. 

Tehran has been proven right. The US-Russia ‘reset’ is meandering aimlessly and its immaculate creator, President Barack Obama no longer possesses the energy or political capital to pay meaningful attention to Russia through the remaining part of his term. And two years is a long time in Russian-American relationship; stagnation can easily set in. The US is ignoring Russia’s pleas for co-option as full-fledged partner into its missile defence programme. On the other hand, the ‘informal’ summit meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO] in Astana on Friday exposed once again that the alliance is falling short of its much-flaunted objective to shape up as the ‘NATO of the East’. Uzbekistan is passing through another zebra crossing zone in its foreign policy and President Islam Karimov failed to show up at the Astana summit. The fate of the CSTO’s rapid reaction force hangs by a thread.

However, more than in Central Asia or Afghanistan, Iran’s usefulness to Russia is nowhere as compelling as in the Middle East. The developments around Syria are fraught with devastating consequences for both Russia and Iran. The two countries are sailing in the same boat in the fateful weeks that lie ahead and will suffer a big setback to their regional influence in the Middle East if a NATO intervention in any form takes place in Syria.

The signs are growing that an intervention is on the cards. Common sense would suggest that US has no financial capacity to undertake a military adventure. But, on the contrary, a spectacular intervention in the Middle East, which is manifestly supportive of Israel’s interests, is precisely what can undercut the Republican Right and uplift Obama’s steadily sagging political fortunes at home in his re-election bid. Ambitious politicians set their own priorities.

A regime change in Syria is almost certainly going to deprive Russia of its only Soviet-era naval base in eastern Mediterranean. Kommersant newspaper reported quoting the Center for Analysis of Strategies & Technologies in Moscow that Russia may lose as much as 3.8 billion dollars from Syrian arms contracts after the US urged a halt to sales. These sales reportedly account for 10% of Russia’s military exports. The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton pointed finger at Russia last week to demand cut-off in trade and arms sales to Syria and ‘get on the right side of history’. (The two other countries, interestingly, that Clinton saw on the wrong side of history are China and India.)

But Syria is much more than a market for arms sales. Syria impacts the situation in Iraq and Lebanon and is a ‘pivotal’ state in the Middle East. The zest with which Obama consulted Saudi Arabia (and Britain) on the action plan for Syria speaks volumes of the geopolitics of the situation around Syria. On the face of it, Obama and King Abdullah make strange bedfellows when they “expressed their shared, deep concerns about the Syrian government’s use of violence against its citizens… [and] agreed that the Syrian regime’s brutal campaign of violence against the Syrian people must end immediately.”

Suffice to say, it cannot be a mere coincidence that just ahead of Obama’s telephone call to Abdullah, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told a high-profile delegation of US congressmen visiting Ramallah that the security of the future Palestinian state will be handed over to NATO under the US command. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Abbas’s political advisor Nimar Hamad since clarified that the Palestinian president is not against the inclusion of Jewish soldiers in the NATO force. These strange utterances are predicated on the assumption of regime change in Syria and the expulsion of the Hamas leadership from Damascus, which would hopefully help Abbas become an adjunct to the US-Saudi axis.

Therefore, Iran’s firm stand against a US-led campaign to intervene in Syria serves Russia’s interests. The NATO is slouching toward the Middle East and bringing that strategic region under its umbrella. The western alliance has already negotiated partnership agreements with Gulf Cooperation Council.

The outcome of the NATO intervention is going to be the deployment of the missile defcnce systems all along Russia’s southern tiers. Salehi was literally touching on this grim scenario when he said in a recent interview with Russia Today that but for Iran’s staunch opposition to the West’s regional policies, the US’s encirclement of Russia’s southern flank would have been complete by now. The Russian stance as conveyed in the account of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart bears striking similarity with Iran’s approach on Syria, although Tehran is proactive, given the compulsions of regional politics.

In sum, Salehi’s visit to Moscow on Wednesday is taking place at a crucial juncture in regional politics. Iran happens to wield considerable influence in all the four regions bordering Russia to the south where the NATO is seeking expansion of its influence – Caucasus, Central Asia and the Caspian and the Middle East. In immediate terms, Moscow and Tehran would agree that the indifferent nature of their relationship worked to the advantage of the US’s Middle East project.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)