A Possible 3rd World War and The Emerging Chen-Ivan Alliance
Anwaar Hussain, Fountainhead
A Possible 3rd World War and The Emerging Chen-Ivan Alliance
By Anwaar Hussain
An attack on Iran by the United States of America in the not too distant a future, with or without a staged 9/11, is no more a vague possibility. Having been already addressed, the reasons for the possible war from either the aggressor or the victim’s stand point are not the aim of this paper. What is of interest here is that many analysts are now openly talking of the possibility of a 3rd World War if that does happen. Are they merely being prophets of doom or is there material basis for their omens? Let us analyze this possibility in plain and simple English language.
A world war can only take place when it involves two are more of the great/super powers. So far the only super power the United States of America (read the coalition), absent the other great powers who are watching the show from the side lines, is unilaterally engaged in waging its own wars pursuant to its ‘national interests’ as defined by the current US administration-- reason thereby of the American wars so far being technically only wars and not world wars.
As singly no great power at the moment has the military muscle to challenge the US, the US attack on Iran will spill over to a world war status only if any combination of the remaining great powers i.e. France, Germany, Russia and China decide to jump into the fray to defend their own ‘national interests’. The European Union states of France and Germany having important diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran because of the EU being Iran’s biggest trading partner, will likely either be neutral, or may eventually chip in on the side of the US led coalition when the war theatre starts expanding from the ‘controlled’ to the ‘uncontrolled’--owing to their being Western Powers ultimately.
That leaves China and Russia—the Chen and Ivan. Let us see what do they have at stake in the region and do they have a common cause for jumping together into the ensuing melee?
As China’s economic star is the ascendant one at the moment and it is actually Ivan hitching a ride on Chen’s gravy train, let us, therefore, take a very brief look at China’s interests in Iran’s stability first--we will come to Russia’s interests later.
In the beginning of last year, China's state-owned oil trading company, Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation, went into a 25-year deal to import 110 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran. A much larger deal followed soon thereafter. In October 2004, China's state-owned oil companies Sinopec and Iran signed a deal, worth about $100 billion, that allows China to import a further 250 million tons of LNG from Iran's Yadavaran oilfield over a 25-year period. The Yadavaran contract also provides China with 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil over the same period in addition to LNG.
Apart from the oil and natural gas delivery contracts, and at the end of 2004 China having become Iran's top oil export market, the colossal investment being undertaken by China's state-owned oil companies in Iran's energy sector including resource exploration, drilling and production as well as in petrochemical and natural gas infrastructure could well exceed a further $120 billion over 25 years…dizzying figures indeed.
Now let us see Russia’s interests in Iran.
Russia and Iran are in a unique partnership. In that Moscow holds the power to make Iran a fully nuclear-armed state through its ability to provide the Iranian leadership with all the necessary nuclear training and technology needed to produce nuclear weapons and, absent Iraq’s economic market courtesy the US of A, depends desperately on the remaining Iranian petro-dollars to boost its fledgling economy. Russia has long experience in building Nuclear power plants and at present builds nuclear plants in China and India other than Iran. Iran recently declared that it planned to build six more reactors, but has not chosen so far with what country to conclude the contract, dangling the carrot ever closer to Ivan’s nose.
Iran has very close strategic ties too with Russia. She has offered to support a Russian initiative in the Caspian Sea to establish a joint rapid reaction force in the region not only to counter ‘terrorist attacks’ on oil pipelines but also to help address ‘emergency’ situations in Caspian countries. Moreover, since 2001, Moscow has been selling $300-400 million a year of Russian military supplies such as MiG-29 fighter aircraft, Su-24 fighter bombers, T-72 tanks, and Kilo class attack submarines to Iran. Iran also plans to buy five Russian-made Tupolev-204-100 passenger planes this year.
Russia has other vital interests in Iran too apart from the controversial Bushehr nuclear project. Oil and gas, energy, nuclear power, transportation, and financial cooperation between Russia and Iran have already been discussed by both sides and are near fruition. The two countries expect a $2 billion trade turnover in 2005, to increase astronomically thereafter. Further, Russian officials have welcomed heartily the South Pars offshore gas field development project as an excellent example of multilateral cooperation. South Pars, comprising of 30 phases to be developed in around 25 years, is being developed jointly by Russian gas giant Gazprom, French Total, and Malaysian Petronas. Phases 2 and 3 are already operational. South Pars is expected to eventually produce 2 billion cu. feet per day of gas on top of 80,000 barrels per day of condensate. It is estimated to contain around 812 trillion cubic feet (14 trillion cubic meters) of gas, equal to 7% of the world's proven reserves and roughly 50% of Iran's.
Russia has also been discussing with Iran and Tajikistan a plan to jointly construct the Sangtudin hydropower station in Tajikistan estimated at about $500 million. On the cards too is restoring a rail link between the two countries within the framework of the North-South transport corridor agreement. The 340-kilometer rail link connecting Russia to the Persian Gulf via Azerbaijan and Iran would be able to handle some 20 million tons of freight per year having a potential to rival the Suez Canal. Russia estimates that the annual trade turnover through the corridor could reach $10 billion per year, with Russia and Iran becoming the main beneficiaries.
Finally, Russia does not want Iran to be undermined by the United States, since Washington is already making inroads on Russia’s southern border in Central Asia. If Washington were able to organize a regime change in Iran-- one that is more amenable to American interests rather than Russian -- it would cause a further degradation in Moscow’s security milieu along its southern border. Additionally, it would allow Washington to have increased leverage in the oil and gas rich area of the Caspian Sea -- an outcome that Russia most definitely would like to avoid.
So what do Chen and Ivan do to remedy the situation?
For starters, they get together.
Growing ties between Moscow and Beijing, historic enemies once, in the past about two years can be seen in that light. After months of hectic diplomacy, China's premier, Wen Jiabao, visited Russia in September 2004. In October 2004, President Vladimir Putin returned the visit. During the October meeting, both China and Russia declared that Sino-Russian relations had reached "unparalleled heights".
The joint statement issued at the conclusion of Putin's state visit to China in October 2004 was a clear indication of Beijing's and Moscow's disgust of the Bush administration's one-sided foreign policy. The statement noted that China and Russia "hold that it is urgently needed to [resolve] international disputes under the chairing of the UN and resolve crisis [sic] on the basis of universally recognized principles of international law. Any coercive action should only be taken with the approval of the UN Security Council and enforced under its supervision..." Both Chen and Ivan are permanent members of the Security Council and, of course, would be loath to pass any sanctions on Iran that can in turn hurt them. The United States, for the same reason, would do its utmost to once again bypass the Security Council.
Between themselves, Russia has become the biggest arms seller to China. According to estimates by the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Russia has been selling China an average of $2 billion worth of weapons each year since 2000. In the past five years, non-military trade too between Russia and China has increased at an average annual rate of nearly 20%. Moscow and Beijing have targeted non-military trade to reach $60 billion by 2010, from $20 billion in 2004.
And to Iran, both China and Russia have been supplying advanced missiles and missile technology since the mid-1980s. In addition to anti-ship missiles like the Silkworm, China has sold Iran surface-to-surface cruise missiles and, along with Russia, assisted in the development of Iran's long-range ballistic missiles. This support included the development of Iran's Shihab-3 and Shihab-4 missiles, with a range of about 2,000 kilometers. Iran is also reportedly developing, with China and Russia’s assistance, missiles with ranges approaching 3,000 kilometers. A simple geometric calculation should be able to prove which all countries then come under the once mighty Persian Empire's strike range.
As a shrill, patent, obvious and a ringing warning shot, and to remove any doubts about this budding partnership between Chen and Ivan, both countries recently concluded the largest-ever war games exercises between themselves—the first since 1958. Called "Peace Mission 2005", the exercise between Russian and Chinese military forces included launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and upto 10,000 Chinese and Russian military personnel. Among other assets used were aircraft including the SU-24 and SU-27 fighters, IL-76 and IL-78 transport planes, and, more ominously, the TU-95 and TU-22 long-range bombers--warplanes that can carry conventional or nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and are not usually part of peacekeeping operations.
Like it is said, ‘it’s all economics stupid’ and not really the milk of human kindness. All three countries are, therefore, essential parts of an economic daisy chain. Russia’s and China’s decision to hold a joint military exercise involving all three services of their armed forces, the kind of weaponry used and the timing of the exercise, thus seem to emerge from a deliberate and well thought out strategy to send clear and present signals to the United States. A decoding of these signals by even a village idiot should read: enough is enough; we are not going to stand by idly while you sabotage our gravy train.
A 3rd World War? Your guess is as good as mine.
