Coalition Growing in Response to US Threats

The Jan. 6 report by Leon Panetta, the U.S. secretary of defense, is a reflection of the future quarrels of this country in the Middle East, East Asia and Eurasia.

In this report, the territory of America’s alliance against threatening countries has become clear. America is trying to reflect its new political, security, power and defense boundaries through this report. In Panetta’s report, we witness a change in discourse, tactics and operation. America is trying to specify its new security boundaries and in this way, it explains patterns of operational behavior in the future. The expansion of military forces and the utilization of flexible operational units demonstrate that a wide spectrum of countries is susceptible to the security threats of America — countries that start from Syria in the Eastern Mediterranean and extend to China in Eastern Asia.

America’s new strategy for countries like Iran, China and Russia is to create more security risks; for that very reason, a new coalition is taking shape. Likewise, the defense and security arrangements of various countries in the realm of international politics are in the transformation process — countries that are trying to give form to this new coalition. The coalitions of the second decade of the 21st century have a tactical nature and are taking shape in response to common threats. Although Russia accepted [U.N.] resolution 1929, it has no desire whatsoever to advance the crisis and conflict against Iran. Russian officials are aware of the fact that Iran and Syria are considered their geopolitical embankment and under such conditions, access to Russia’s security embankment in the Middle East will be construed to increase America’s geopolitical mobility.

America has initiated its missile defense system in Turkey on Jan. 17; such action as a utilization of a missile defense shield is considered a deterrent for Russia. America also engages in interventionism in Russian elections and has no desire to see the extension of Putin’s security policies in Russia. From this perspective, it seems natural that under such conditions, Russian officials will support policies limiting the United States from expanding its influence in the Middle East.

Sergei Lavrov, foreign minister of Russia, has supported Iran’s nuclear policy and calls it peaceful. Based on this, it is natural that manifestations of the joint cooperation of Iran, Russia and China would be created in response to the common American-Atlantic threat. One could call the trip to Russia of Ali Bagheri, deputy chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s response of cooperation in the alliance against aggressive American politics. Whenever America’s threat is intensified, it is natural that a counterbalancing policy against that country’s aggressive example will also be used. One could call the Jan. 2012 U.S. Department of Defense report a symbol of multilateral threat against those countries that resist. Resistance has not taken shape in the Middle East region alone; a broad spectrum of anti-hegemonic countries are trying to organize a showing of resistance against unilateralism, aggressive politics and America’s quest for supremacy. It is necessary to explain that such an approach will be hazardous for America’s future as well.

Countries that venture to expand their sphere of influence must be aware that regional influence does not mean ignoring the minimal interests of the other players. Iran pursuing its nuclear activities within the framework of IAEA safeguards and Iran’s lack of deviation from IAEA safeguards must lead to the creation of strategic benefits for the Islamic Republic of Iran, not strategic restrictions.

In this process, Turkey’s role has special importance. The trip of Davutoglu, foreign minister of Turkey, to Russia and America in the next two weeks indicates that consultation exists for the politics of reconciliation. A policy of reconciliation is produced purely under the conditions that the boundaries of Iran’s legal action are separated from those designs based on America’s unilateralism. Although Davutoglu made a great effort to hold sessions in Tehran and sessions in Istanbul in 2010, America paid no attention to such a constructive effort and one could consider resolution 1929 opposition to Turkey’s model of creating cooperation for reconciliation. A temporary compromise takes shape where political boundaries are made through a process of mediation.

Ebrahim Mottaghi is a Tehran University professor.