Since its founding in 1922, Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs. The magazine has featured contributions from many leading international affairs experts.
More resources
Nicole Grajewski is a Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance From Syria to Ukraine.
O Rabinowitz is a professor of the Department of International Relations of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Associate Professor of Israeli at Stanford University.
In July 2015, General Qasem Soleimani, the former elite force commander Quds de Iran, was secretly to Moscow to talk about an emergency plan to save the Assad regime in Syria, who had lost around 80 % of the Syrian territory in 4 years of civil war of civil war. . Russia had just helped negotiate the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015, known as the Joint General Action Plan. From Soleimani, revealed 3 months later, he got his challenge to UN sanctions to travel similar to the Iranian nuclear program and threatened to undermine him. The Irano-Ruses, going from a tactical cooperation in Syria to a nearby association today, which leads to the signing of a strategic association agreement between the two countries in January 2025.
Russia’s intervention in Syria has forced Moscow to strike a sensitive balance between Iran and Israel, with which it had a constructive diplomatic relationship. While coordinating the army’s operations with Iran, Moscow has maintained diplomatic channels with Israel and has even acted to restrict Iranian influence in Syria in Syria. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in 2022, as well as its reaction to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, have disappointed that balance, as Moscow’s construction depends on the generation of the Iranian army has brought it closer to Tehran. A decade after Soleimani’s visit, Iran and Russia have enjoyed unprecedented ties, strengthened through their shared isolation from the West and Army cooperation in Ukraine. Russia, once the architect of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, has become a potential catalyst for Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
With the Iranian resistance axis, weakened through Israel’s reaction to October 7, the fall of the Assad regime and the fights in Ukraine entering their third year, Moscow and Tehran opposed the other. The Iranian army has become critical for the Russian war effort, and the nuclear progression helped through Russia temporarily becomes the maximum hard lever in Iran opposite Israel and the West. For the United States and Israel, this new appointment is probably maximum to consolidate the appearance of an influential anti-western axis. But a crusade of “maximum pressure” opposed to Iran, the preference of many inmates of the Trump administration, can bring Iran to Russia. Instead, the United States will have to have interaction in a sensitive diplomatic demonstration that is his: save him Iran of obtaining nuclear weapons without leading Tehran in Moscow’s arms.
Syria has been a checkbox for the collaboration of the Iranian-Russian army. Despite the lack of official defense commitments or prior operational experience, Moscow and Tehran have evolved all executives for military and diplomatic coordination, beginning with the involvement of Russia’s military in Syria in the fall of 2015. Key territories, extending the rule of the Syrian dictator well. for another decade. These verified coordination mechanisms in the fight would be useful, while Russia has expanded the military’s cooperation with Iran after its invasion of Ukraine. Existing channels of cooperation, such as built-in command structures, intelligence-sharing protocols, and source channels forged in Syria were used in opposition to Ukraine. Russia has also turned to Iran for the support of the Direct Army, especially in the generation of drones and the production of joint defense.
Russia has cultivated a thorough diplomatic diplomatic with Israel parallel to its cooperation of the army with Iran. Which began as a distrust channel created to save it. Putin, generating ten high -level meetings between 2015 and in Russia for the participation of Assad and Iranian in Syria between 2015 and in Russia for Assad and Iranian in Syria between 2015 and in Russia for Assad and Iranian engagement in Syria between 2015 and Russia For Russia Assad and Irandian 2019. Putin agreed Israel’s movements in Syria restricate in Syria in Syria to avoid further destabilizing the maximum regime.
Netanyahu used his appointment with Russia to his merit domestically, praising his close ties with Putin in his 2019 election crusade to demonstrate his references as a savvy actor on the global stage. Israel, on the other hand, continued its own program through its “interwar crusade,” which aimed to save Iran from the army’s permanent infrastructure in Syria and disrupt Iranian-origin routes to Hezbollah through covert operations and airstrikes.
Before the 2022 expanded invasion of Ukraine, Russia strained to preserve its relationships with both Iran and Israel as they pursued their own, conflicting interests, revealing the difficulty of maintaining its regional balancing act. On the one hand, Moscow chose to ignore Israeli operations against Iran and its nonstate allies in Syria. According to WhatsApp communications recently captured by rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Damascus, it even tried to arrange a Kremlin meeting between Assad and then Mossad chief Yossi Cohen in late 2019, to limit Iran’s influence in Syria (Assad ultimately withdrew). But on the other, it collaborated with Iran to prop up the Assad regime and was secretly directly arming Hezbollah. According to Israeli intelligence, over 70 percent of Hezbollah armaments captured in Lebanon were Russian-made, supplied directly through Russia’s Tartus naval base in Syria. Russia may have been able to juggle its relationships with both countries if not for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which changed the dynamics in Syria and caused the Kremlin’s strategy to collapse under the weight of its contradictions.
As sanctions intensified, Russia, finding itself increasingly isolated from the West, saw Iran as a reliable partner in two conflicts. As it drew ground forces away from Syria and into Ukraine, Moscow maintained its air presence at the Khmeimim air base but delegated ground support for the Assad government to Iranian-backed forces. These adaptations initially proved effective in preserving Russian influence in Syria. But they further entrenched Iranian military presence in the region, worrying Israeli officials, who responded by increasing attempts to limit Iranian involvement in Syria. The new dynamic was evident in May 2022, when Russian forces based in Syria used Russian-supplied S-300 antiaircraft missiles against Israeli jets attacking targets in northwest Syria for the first time. Still, Israel remained largely quiet about the Ukraine war, to preserve Russian cooperation in Syria. In a March 2023 interview, Netanyahu stressed that Israeli pilots were operating “in very close proximity” to Russian pilots. The uneasy equilibrium Russia had achieved was growing increasingly precarious. The events following Hamas’s October 7 attack would destroy it.
Moscow’s already deepening reliance on Iranian support in Ukraine broke the path for deeper Iranian-Russian cooperation in the Middle East. As Iranian-backed actors, including the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria, mobilized across the region to attack Israel after October 7, Russia abandoned any pretense of neutrality. In Yemen, according to The Wall Street Journal, Moscow provided satellite data through IRGC operatives to enhance Houthi targeting capabilities against shipping vessels in the Red Sea and agreed to a $10 million weapons deal with the Houthis, brokered by Tehran, under the guise of a humanitarian aid package, before it was ultimately scuttled. In Lebanon, it facilitated the transfer of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, including advanced antitank guided missiles later deployed against targets inside Israel. Russia also granted Iranian-backed forces greater operational freedom in the Syrian Golan Heights. Perhaps most indicative of Russia’s shift was the refusal of Putin and Russian officials to issue any condemnation or rebuke of Hamas in the days following October 7. Rather, on October 13, Putin compared the Israel Defense Forces to the Nazis, telling journalists that the its plans in Gaza were “comparable to the siege of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War.”
The Israeli response to October 7 dealt decisive blows to Iran’s network of proxies. In addition to targeting Hamas in Gaza, Israel established effective land and air blockades that severed Iranian troop movements and logistics into Syria for Hezbollah by the end of 2023. The campaign eliminated 16 senior Hezbollah commanders, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and decimated the organization’s presence in southern Lebanon and its strongholds in Syria. Despite its long-standing policy of avoiding direct confrontation with Israel, in April and October 2024, Iran launched two separate missile and drone attacks against Israel. Israel’s October retaliation, which targeted missile-manufacturing sites and air defense sites across the country, had far-reaching consequences. The attack destroyed four Russian supplied S-300 systems and Iranian air defense systems, crippling Iran’s ability to defend itself from future strikes.
The prompt escalation after October 7 benefited from Russia by diverting attention and western resources away from Ukraine and the Middle East. But in the end, Moscow came to suffer the consequences of Iran’s regional setback. After a decade of success, the Russian army assistance, the Assad regime suddenly collapsed in December 2024. Unlike 2016, when Iranian floor forces and Russian air help controlled to delay the insurgent forces of the Alepo Siege , no boss could release a rapid counteroffensive this time. The forces had seriously broken through Israeli attacks, and Israel’s Air Force could save you Iranian attempts to succeed in Damascus. Russia was too worried about war in Ukraine to protect Assad.
The way in which wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are deeply connected with Ukraine and the Middle East stood out when Ukraine has prolonged their opposite combat to Russian influence directly in Syria. kyiv sent around 20 experienced drones operators and 150 complex drones in the first person to the insurgent headquarters in IDLIB to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Facing inevitable defeat, Moscow orchestrated a hasty but carefully planned exfiltration of Assad from Damascus. Russian state media amplified reports in the Turkish press that, in exchange for safe passage, Assad provided a comprehensive list of Syrian strategic assets, which Israel subsequently targeted. But these face-saving measures could not obscure the fundamental unraveling of Russia and Iran’s position in Syria. In response to these defeats, Iran moved to rapidly expand its nuclear program, with Russia, no longer able to balance its diplomatic commitments to two regional rivals, now its new leading partner. The two countries lost Syria, but, in the fall of Damascus, they gained each other.
His traditional agents and abilities have weakened and their “forward defense strategy” has challenged, Tehran began to reconsider its nuclear option. Currently, Iran is destined to be a threshold nuclear state, with essential pieces for nuclear weapons, adding uranium enrichment technology, technical experience, delivery systems and facilities, but it still does not have to assemble. The complete weapons would require a difficult procedure that the hazards detection of inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency or through Western Intelligence Agencies, as well as Israeli or United States preventive attacks from the United States. Iranian officials began to refer to possible adjustments in Iran’s nuclear stance, which officially avoids the progression of nuclear weapons, some beautiful figures blatantly ask the nuclear acquisition. In April 2024, Brigade General Ahmed Haq Talab, commander of the Iranian nuclear nuclear centers, said that if Israel committed a decrease in one of the Iranian nuclear facilities, the regime can “review” its nuclear document Kamal Kharrazi, a former civil civilian, a former civil civilian. Server, he warned that if Israel “dares to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities, our deterrent will be different. We have no resolution to produce a nuclear bomb, however, if Iran’s lifestyles are threatened, we will have to replace Our nuclear doctrine.
Russia’s embrace adds additional complexity to Iran’s nuclear equation. Moscow’s position has undergone a dramatic transformation. Once a United Nations RS, the Security Council, sanctions Iran’s nuclear program and a key architect of the Iran nuclear deal, Russia has come to see Iran as a best friend and key spouse with which to allocate force in its own community and beyond. Iranian army. in Ukraine has not only become very important to Moscow’s war effort; It has also led Russia to link Iran’s nuclear program to broader tensions with the West. Russia is using the West’s attention to the risk of a nuclear Iran to stoke tensions and divert attention from Ukraine.
Although the precise nature of Russian aid to Iran is unknown, American and Israeli officials have been following their evolutionary association with alarm development. In July 2023, the director of the CIA, William Burns, highlighted the Russian cooperation with the Iran’s area launch program, raising the presence of Russian technicians “working on the area of launch vehicles of the area in Iran and other facets of its missile programs. ” Significantly, this assistance is applicable to the development of ICBM.
In September 2024, American intelligence revealed that Russia has expanded its nuclear cooperation with Iran in exchange for short -ranking ballistic missiles for Ukraine. Israeli officials and mavens also expressed considerations that Russia can simply help Iran with the generation of armament in reaction to the provocative statement of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev “is mandatory to which of the enemies of the states -we can move our potential Our enemies.
Russian assistance can also only the diversity of fuel production to more delicate regions, such as metallurgy and weapons design. It is only reused for ICBM. Most of which is Russia’s perspective to help Iran to their nuclear weapons designs and expand the appropriate miniaturized eyelets for missile delivery systems.
In the short term, Iran is more involved on receiving Russian for the reconstruction of its aerial defenses to protect its nuclear facilities. But their plans go beyond the rapid recovery of capacity. President Iranian Masoud Peeshkian visited Moscow days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, ending, ending a strategic association treaty so long as expected with Russia that deepens bilateral cooperation. This moment is not a coincidence: Iran is trying to counteract the maximum promises of a new administration of the United States through the cementation of ties with Russia.
Israel and the United States face a complex calculation on how to deal with a weakened but nuclear. For Israeli officials, an operational opportunity to attack Iran is recently open, due to the degraded air defenses of Iran. and modernizing its aerial defenses will probably close that window, assuming that Russia manages to provide Iran the most complicated air defense systems and the complex combat planes you are looking for.
Although the Trump administration’s mooted maximum pressure campaign might lead to calls for military action while constraining Tehran economically, an Israeli or joint U.S.-Israeli campaign could strengthen Iran’s nuclear resolve and deepen Russian support. Given the uncertainty of military success, a diplomatic approach combining tailored pressure with engagement offers a more promising path.
American resolution manufacturers will have to put the needle by calibration of tension in Moscow and Tehran without deepening the existing association. The new strategic association agreement shows the restrictions of existing collaboration; It stops less than a mutual defense agreement. In addition, the wishes of the Russian Army in Ukraine compare the exports of the army that Russia can send to Iran. This means that the United States at all times has space to maneuver to restrict Russian assistance related to nuclear to Iran. But the policies of the first Trump administration, which add tension and maximum sanctions aimed at the Russian defense sector, paradoxically accelerated their cooperation by creating shared complaints and a non -unusual enemy. This time, management faces a more complicated dynamic. It is not a greater treatment than the complete joint action plan. The Iranian nuclear program is more complex than in 2015, which provides more influence on nuclear negotiations despite its decrease in geopolitical position. His association with Russia will help him protect him from the worst sanctions. And the resolution of the Trump’s first administration to withdraw from JCPOA can simply lead Tehran to believe that the United States will not provide any solution of sanctions.
Washington should instead adopt a gradual approach, working with its European partners, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, to trigger, or threaten to trigger, the snapback mechanism contained in the Iran deal, which would reimpose UN Security Council sanctions predating the JCPOA on Iran. Although Trump, who withdrew the United States from the deal unilaterally in 2018, may chafe at invoking the deal’s terms, administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have hinted at his support for imposing snapback sanctions. They could yet be a critical component in getting Iran to the negotiating table.
The expiration of the snapback mechanism in October 2025 gives the United States a time frame in which to reinvigorate diplomatic engagement and potentially extend or revise the deal’s terms. Despite no longer being a party to the nuclear deal, Washington should coordinate a carefully sequenced multilateral pressure campaign, taking advantage of the ability of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to trigger the automatic reimposition of the pre-2015 sanctions, a process that neither Russia nor China can veto.
The United States deserves to actively inspire Israel to build its for Ukraine now that Russia’s leverage in Syria has decreased. In the past, Israel has been cautious by helping Ukraine, offering kyiv with early caution radars and humanitarian aid, but avoiding deeper cooperation, fearing the reprisals opposed to the Russian Jews and the dissolution of the channels of the disconent with Russia with Russia In Syria. But after Assad’s eviction and the significant withdrawal of Russia from Syria, Israel can reconsider. Specific measures can come with the Source of Key Activation Technologies, such as cell radar sets and invention ammunition seized for inherited Soviet systems that Israel has seized in Lebanon and Syria.
While the war in Ukraine clings and the acrimonant relations of Iran with the West persist, led a hole between Russia and Iran will be a main challenge. Washington will have to remain aware of Russian and Iranian prospective efforts to repair the influence in Syria, where the Iranian-Rusa association first was fruit. A nuclear Iran, with the help of Russia, would destabilize the moderate Sunni regimes in the region, adopt the hardness and weaken the emerging Sunni-Israeli axes, in addition to catapulting the domain in a race of regional nuclear weapons. But Putin’s autocratic state marriage with complex nuclear abilities and an Islamist regime decided to ensure that their own survival is a risk that is larger beyond the Middle East. This can motivate the states that share the same concepts in the global to unite their dissatisfaction with the global leadership of the United States and to register in their ranks.
Subscribe to Foreign Affairs to get unlimited access.
Already a subscriber? Sign in