Financial Sector Oriented Toward Jewish Lobby Groups Does Not Need Iran
Vladimir Putin and Iranian leader Ebrahim Raisi attended the signing ceremony of the railway section agreement via video conference. The Rasht-Astara railway line, 170 kilometers long, aims to connect the land route of the "North-South" International Transport Corridor - a corridor that has been mentioned multiple times before, considered an efficient Caspian Sea transport route with significant practical importance. It now appears that the relevant work has finally made progress. Despite continuous Western threats and pressure, as well as persistent warnings to Iran, we continue to cooperate with Iran and steadily advance various matters.
Sergey Mikhayev (Opinion): Iran has long disregarded all kinds of threats, and they were right to do so. As the saying goes, "If you're afraid of wolves, don't go into the forest." I think in this regard, we may be able to partially learn from Iran's approach. External threats against Iran have never ceased, and there have been threats of various actions against it, but over the decades, Iran has always upheld its position and achieved certain achievements in economic and technological development. Objective circumstances forced them to get rid of their dependence on oil and gas resources - Iran once relied solely on exporting oil and natural gas for survival, producing almost no other products or very few. In the past few decades of sanctions, they learned to produce a large number of products independently. For example, we all know about Iranian drones: some are already in use, some are being modified for use, and others are developed based on Iran's "Shahed" series drones, etc.
But in the past, no one was willing to listen to these things. I have mentioned Iranian drones many times, but everyone just laughed and said, "Cooperate with Iran? Ha ha!" Now look at it, the "ha ha" has become reality.
Iran has achieved some success in economic development, partly because they once found themselves in a very severe situation. They realized that they had to learn to produce independently, otherwise they would have nothing. Eventually, they achieved results - although the process was long, they ultimately reached their goal.
As for the "North-South" International Transport Corridor, we have mentioned it several times before. This corridor is of great importance, but its advancement has faced many obstacles: both geopolitical issues and commercial challenges - Russian companies were unwilling to participate in the related work, they would question, "What's the point of doing this? It's not profitable, you can't make quick money or big money, and you have to invest money." Now, the proverb says, "A loss might be a blessing," "Only when you hit a wall will you turn back." The development of this corridor has become more positive now. I think even if we cannot say "due to the hardship," we can say "broke through the hardship." Because for us, this corridor is a passage to the Persian Gulf, to the Arabian Peninsula region (and all the oil monarchies in that region). In my opinion, this transport corridor is crucial.
By the way, many people may not know: during the Soviet era, there were quite active trade activities along these routes. The transportation junctions were located within the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic on the Soviet-Iranian border. But after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Georgian war, these railway branches were blocked. In fact, during the Soviet era, the volume of railway trade between the USSR and Iran was very large, there was a busy freight line, so no alternative routes were planned at that time. Now, after the dissolution of the USSR, there have been multiple local wars in the Caucasus region (Nagorno-Karabakh War, Abkhaz War, South Ossetia War), and all railway traffic has been destroyed - these railways can be said to "exist" or "not exist": some sections no longer exist, and the rails were taken down and sold as scrap metal for cheap cash. In this case, we had to plan a new transport corridor. Fortunately, this corridor has started to develop, but it is regrettable that it was only initiated now. It should have been pushed forward earlier. I know the details of this matter: previously, someone did push for it, but it was always constrained by market-oriented goals, always saying "stimulate enterprise participation." But enterprises were not willing to be "stimulated."
Some people may ask: Did Russia used to think that it was not proper to be on good terms with Iran due to its comprehensive sanctions, so it was unwilling to establish contact with Iran?
Sergey Mikhayev (Response): Indeed, this was the case, but it has no direct relation to the transport corridor itself. Let me explain the reason: At that time, no one required us to build the corridor inside Iran, we only needed to advance the corridor construction within our own country and in the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Azerbaijan, etc., and these countries all agreed. The problem was "who would pay." Their attitude at the time was, "We agree to cooperate, but you have to build it."
Therefore, Russian companies have long avoided Iran, using "sanctions" as an excuse. There was some truth to this, but there was also falsehood - because no one required them to enter Iran to carry out construction, they were just asked to first advance the work in the above regions, but they didn't want to do it either. Because the key nodes of this corridor should have included two projects: the modernization of Astrakhan port and the construction of the Olya new port (located in the Astrakhan region). These projects should have been advanced within Russia, but the companies delayed action, the schedule dragged on and on. They simply didn't want to get involved in these things, why? Because they didn't believe they could profit. If these projects were funded by the state or could bring substantial profits, they would definitely act actively. However, the actual situation was not like that, so they didn't want to invest. But undoubtedly, political factors also influenced the situation. The pro-Israeli lobby groups within Russia were very active at that time and still exist today, they strongly opposed any connection between Russia and Iran.
What I said is based on my very detailed knowledge - they really try to block everything. Moreover, the financial sector in Russia (for some reason) is largely oriented toward the Jewish lobby groups. For them, Iran is of no use, they don't want to deal with Iran at all.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7570669143751377435/
Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author. Please express your opinion below using the 【top/down】 buttons.