Iran’s parliament has pushed back against the military dismissing its oversight following Russian Federation using an Iranian air base to launch airstrikes on Syria.
Advertisement
Iran’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) is considering to negotiate with Russian Federation over acquisition of Sukhoi S-300 and Bavar-373 air defense systems.
It was the first time Russian Federation has used the territory of another nation, apart from Syria itself, to launch such strikes since Moscow started a bombing campaign against IS targets inside Syria last September. But Iran’s withdrawal of permission for Russian Federation to use its base did not occur as a result of a sudden improvement in Iranian-American ties. But this line of reasoning did not quell criticism, and so Tehran announced an end to these Russian missions while criticizing Moscow for having announced them publicly. To crown it all, there are many people in Iran who are directly opposed to building close cooperation with Russian Federation.
22 had insisted that Russia’s use of the base was finished “for now”.
“Iran has brought powerful Russian Federation along. due to its need to cooperate with Syria” in the fight against militants, Shamkhani added.
What this episode shows is that, even though Moscow and Tehran are both supporting the Assad regime against its opponents in Syria and top Iranian leaders were willing to allow Russian Federation to use a base in Iran in pursuit of this common aim, a highly negative view of Russian Federation prevails in Iran that limits the extent to which the leadership of the Islamic Republic want to be seen cooperating with it. However, Iranian government’s focus is on acquiring the capability and technology to produce the systems in-country rather than depending on Russian Federation for weapons.
Some analysts say the row over use of the base will cool Iran-Russian military cooperation for a while.
Reports began circulating last week that Russia’s Tupolev-22M3 bombers and military transport planes have used Iran’s Nojeh airbase for airstrikes against terrorist groups in Syria.
Russia’s fighter jets have not halted flights from an Iranian airbase into Syria to pound militants, Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said on Tuesday.
Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan, center, and his counterparts from Russia Sergei Shoigu, left, and Syria Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij pose for a photo while attending their trilateral meeting in Tehran, Iran, on June 9, 2016.
Advertisement
For his part, Lamont Colucci, a former diplomat with the U.S. Department of State and now an associate professor of politics and government at Ripon College in Wisconsin, laments that American intellectuals have turned a blind eye to both Russia’s and Iran’s rise to power in a strategic effort to achieve their ambitions for dominance in the Middle East. The ongoing tension in Russian-Iranian relations that this episode highlights could provide an opportunity for American foreign policy to exploit. But the fact that it happened at all was sure to have raised eyebrows in Riyadh, Ankara and Washington.
