Putin’s friendship has limits — as Iran just found out

Iran, thus, grew to become the most recent nation after Syria and Venezuela to really feel firsthand what partnership with Russia does, and doesn’t, imply.

Since launching its full-scale conflict in Ukraine 4 years in the past, the Kremlin has flexed its rhetorical muscle because the flag bearer of a so-called multipolar world. However, at decisive moments, its response on the bottom in allied nations has been conspicuously anemic as their leaders got here beneath assault. 

First, Syria’s Bashar-al-Assad realized in late 2024 that Russian backing didn’t assure the survival of his regime as insurgent forces rampaged into Damascus. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, sitting in an American jail cell since early this 12 months, may even be pondering the place the Kremlin was in his hour of want. In the present day, Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed throughout the assault on Tehran, U.S. President Donald Trump introduced.

Iran now threatens to develop into the most recent instance of the discrepancy between the Kremlin’s massive speak within the face of American hegemony and the actual world the place that hegemony is more and more on full show.

Symbolic help solely

For Tehran, Moscow’s lackluster response ought to come as no shock.

The writing has been on the wall since at the least final summer time, when — throughout a 12-day conflict with Israel that included a large U.S. assault on Iranian nuclear websites — prime Russian officers equally supplied statements of condemnation however no motion.