Partnership with Iran: The Lynchpin of the Axis of Evil?

Abstract

From a policy largely premised on responsiveness to Iranian initiatives, Russia came to use its alignment with Iran to actively challenge the United States. Peculiar to the Russian-Iranian relationship in the post-Cold War period has been the fact that these relations occurred almost entirely in the shadow of American interference. Russia frequently examined its policy towards Iran through the lens of American suspicions of Iran.⁵¹⁴ The Iranian case was the clearest illustration of how the American factor played into Russian alignment policy.