Claims About Russia’s Unreliability As An “Ally” Vis-à-Vis Iran Are Based On A False Premise

Russia never agreed to any secret military clauses in its updated strategic partnership pact with Iran.

Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets from The Telegraph to the New York Times, Bloomberg, CNN, and others have claimed that Russia is an unreliable “ally” for Iran, which Putin said during the latest St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is only spread by “provocateurs”. Some members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC) had earlier implied or even outright alleged as much too on social media but quickly changed their rhetoric after his comments so as to not discredit themselves.

The MSM and AMC are rivals, yet they sometimes share similar assessments about Russia, albeit with polar opposite value judgements. In the case of Russian-Iranian relations, they both speculated that their updated strategic partnership pact had secret military clauses, with the MSM fearmongering that they’re a threat to Israel and the US while the AMC praised them for supposedly ensuring regional security. The reality though is that no such clauses existed no matter how compelling such speculation was to some.

Nevertheless, some of the top AMC influencers who speculated about this are openly associated with the Russian state, having been invited by it to conferences and even in some cases publicly befriending top officials. Some of these same people and others are also occasionally platformed by publicly financed Russian media. This led to many average members of the AMC assuming that these top influencers’ speculation about secret military clauses between Russia and Iran was Kremlin-approved.

Accordingly, it was taken for granted that they existed and this then became part of the AMC’s dogma, which in turn lent false credence to the MSM’s speculation about their existence too. Anyone who was aware of Russia’s objectively existing and easily verifiable policy towards the Iranian-Israeli rivalry – which readers can review here, here, and here – knew that this wasn’t the case though. The problem, however, is that some in Russia didn’t gently nudge top AMC influencers into correcting the record.

The reason “Why False Perceptions About Russian Policy Towards Israel Continue To Proliferate” is because of the aforementioned soft power policy that can be described as “Potemkinism”, which is “the calculated creation of artificial realities for strategic purposes”, in this case to strengthen Russian soft power. For however well-intentioned this approach might be, it backfired by creating false expectations of Russian policy that inevitably led to deep disappointment, thus actually harming Russian soft power.

The reason why so many in the MSM, and even still some in the AMC, claim that Russia is an unreliable “ally” vis-à-vis Iran is because of this false premise that they were secretly allies in the military sense. The MSM’s motives are to smear Russia in order to sow doubts about its commitment to other strategic partners in those countries’ societies while the AMC is motivated by vengeance after this supposed “betrayal”. Russia never had any secret obligation to defend Iran, however, so this is all based on nothing.

The lesson is that it’s important for top AMC influencers to accurately articulate Russian policy even if they disagree with it, which is their right, so as to not mislead their audience (whether deliberately or unwittingly) about its interests. Likewise, those in Russia who support “Potemkinism” should reconsider after this approach inadvertently harmed Russian soft power. Even if a policy might be unpopular abroad, it’s better for everyone to understand it, not be led to believe that it’s something very different.