Ahead of the upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the Bloomberg website reported that Washington and Moscow are in intensive talks to reach at least one deal, the Middle East website reported.
The deal would enable Trump to market the summit on the grounds that it was a victory for him, which would justify taking steps towards restoring relations with the Russians.
In an interview with Bloomberg, a Russian official said the Iranian role in Syria would be at the top of the issues to be addressed at the Trump and Putin summit in Helsinki on July 16.
These leaks were also confirmed by Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has long defended the need to change the regime in Iran.
"We are going to see what happens when they meet," Bolton said in an interview with CBS television, "There are possibilities for intensive negotiations on getting Iranian troops out of Syria and returning to Iran, which will be an important step forward."
A senior US official was quoted by CBS as saying that the US government had decided to focus on persuading Putin to stop cooperating with Iran, his partner on the battlefield in Syria.
These reports have alarmed the leadership in Iran, prompting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to send his chief adviser Ali Akbar Velayati to convey a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The deep state in Iran, dominated by conservatives, still favors an alliance with Russia in the face of American influence.
Earlier, Khamenei praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a prominent figure in contemporary history.
Unlike the conservatives, a large segment of Iran's reformers, who form the political weight of President Hassan Rowhani, hate the Russians very much and are passionate about rapprochement with the West.
A stab at the back
In an article published in the daily Imran Daily, Iran's former ambassador to the United Nations, Ali Khoram, said that Russia not only stabbed Iran in the back with regard to Syria, but volunteered to announce its readiness with Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to circumvent Iran's share in OPEC.
Russia had hinted earlier that all foreign forces, including Iran, should eventually leave Syria.
These days, the Iranian press has headlines such as "Russia shocked Iran," "Saudi-Russian alliance against Iran," and "Russia is challenging Iran from behind."
According to conservative opponents, Moscow worked with Riyadh to pressure OPEC to increase oil production in order to give Trump the opportunity to impose a blockade on Iranian oil without any result to raise prices in world markets.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on July 4 that Iran was one of the main powers in the region and it was unrealistic to expect it to give up its interests in Syria.
In other words, given the Syrian position and geopolitical equations, Russia is not in a position to push Iran out of Syria.
Lavrov did not stop at that point, but added that Iran's exit from Syria was due to regional powers and could discuss its concerns and reach a compromise.
In response to the Bloomberg report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pskov said that "the Russian issue will be the subject of an exchange of views between Trump and Putin at the Helsinki summit .. It is easy to predict this."
"However, when it is reported that two countries are discussing and making some decisions on a third country, this is largely unrealistic, which shows that these reports are incorrect."
| Observers predict Iran will retain its troops in Syria after the end of the armed conflict (the island) |
Iran
Lavrov seems right, because expelling Iran from Syria is unrealistic. As long as Tehran remains a crucial regional force in Lebanon and Iraq, it will probably remain a major player in Syria even after the war is over.
It is no secret that Iran has established a paramilitary base in Syria similar to the Lebanese Hezbollah, relying on its experience in Iraq to exercise influence through proxies.
On the American side, what is Trump's quiver to offer Putin in exchange for abandoning Iran, which has strategic ties with Russia?
With the deep state of Washington stuck to anti-Moscow sentiment and as Robert Mueller continues to investigate Russian intervention in US elections, major concessions such as lifting sanctions on Russia remain out of the question.
In 2015, when the nuclear agreement between Tehran and the international powers, which reduced the sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the price of the barrel was only forty dollars.
"We will increase oil production at any price, we have no other choice and if we do not do so immediately we will lose our share in the market," said his oil minister at the time.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia wants to help Trump tighten its grip on Iranian oil, but that may not apply to the Russians.
Perhaps the important thing is that Russia does not have the leverage to expel Iran from Syria in exchange for any significant concession offered by Trump to Putin.
But the most important point is that Trump has little to offer to Putin. Regardless of the complexity of Putin's game with Trump, it is likely that the sale of Iran is not among the papers that the Kremlin master may use.