JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Iran and Russia are - well, they're at least friendly. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, spoke with NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MEET THE PRESS ")
ABBAS ARAGHCHI: Well, a military cooperation between Iran and Russia is not something new. It's not a secret. It has been in the past and is still there and will continue in the future.
SUMMERS: He evaded specific questions, though, as first reported by The Washington Post last week, U.S. officials believe that Russia is sharing the locations of U.S. forces in the Middle East with Iran. NPR has also confirmed that reporting. Of course, Russia is also trying to manage a war of its own in Ukraine. Russian President Putin and U.S. President Trump spoke about that and Iran on Monday for about an hour. For more on all of this, we've reached Nicole Grajewski from the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris. Welcome to the program.
NICOLE GRAJEWSKI: Thank you so much for having me.
SUMMERS: Now, Nicole, I know that you were quoted in the Post's reporting. I want to start with this. How consequential is Russia's assistance to Iran here?
GRAJEWSKI: In terms of the level of consequence of this cooperation, you have to view this in the context of Iran's, you know, space-based capabilities and Iran's ability to gather intelligence and information about the movement of troops, which they're severely lacking on. Iran barely has any military-grade satellites. It also helps with the Iranian targeting and precision. And so it does offer some leaps in Iranian existing tools, but it's not a fundamental game changer in terms of Iranian performance. I would say this is more of an enabler than anything else.
SUMMERS: Strategically, what does Russia get out of this? How did they benefit from helping Iran?
GRAJEWSKI: It's hard to say what direct kind of quid pro quos there's been. But Iran also offers, you know, an opportunity for Russia to kind of challenge and actually increase uncertainty for U.S. in other regions. And it distracts to some extent from the war in Ukraine. And so it seems like Iran was already anticipating the need for this kind of information. And rather than Russia delivering direct weapon systems, they kind of opted for this. It's kind of a culmination of their partnership, and it also is very much in line with the way that they kind of conduct the state of affairs.
SUMMERS: Pushing on this a little bit, I mean, sharing intelligence is obviously less than Russia selling weapons to Iran and certainly much less than Russia actually joining the fight. And notably, Iran has supplied drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine. From your view, does it appear to you that Russia is perhaps reluctant to do anything other than to share intelligence?
GRAJEWSKI: To some extent, they're reluctant, partly because this would be, you know, a redline for the United States. It also would make Russia a direct party complicit in this war. And I think Russia would like to avoid that partly because of their relations with the Gulf and also with Israel. But, you know, I think that the kind of bigger issue here is that Russia has its own constraints. Russia's, you know, defense industrial complex is facing strain 'cause of the war in Ukraine. And there's a question of what, really, Russia could offer in this short time frame. So there's natural limits to the partnership, but there's also a kind of material constraint here as well.
SUMMERS: U.S. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone Monday, and they talked about Ukraine but also about Iran. The Kremlin says that Putin called for a quick end to the Iran war. What do you make from the readout of that discussion - what you've heard?
GRAJEWSKI: From my understanding, it was quite a long conversation. It was around an hour long.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
GRAJEWSKI: And this is a trend that the Russians tend to do whenever there is a flare-up with Iran - is they offer their skills at mediation or their closeness or their partnership with Iran to essentially curry favor to the United States. But what is clear here is that Russia does offer some areas that they could be of assistance and be helpful, and that's partly with the highly enriched uranium. And if the Iranians and the United States come to some agreement on this, the Russians could potentially be the country that ships it out of Iran. So there's areas where Russia can be constructive. But at the moment, it seems like they're just using this as a bargaining chip with the United States as well.
SUMMERS: Stepping back a bit, last year Iran and Russia announced a comprehensive strategic partnership, but in thinking about it, it sounds a bit more like they're perhaps allies of circumstance instead. How do you see it?
GRAJEWSKI: They're definitely - I mean, I wouldn't even call them allies. I would call them partners. I mean, they're strategic partners, but they don't have a defense agreement in terms of the traditional sense of it. They don't have a mutual agreement that obliges either party to intervene on the other's behalf in a war. Neither of them wanted to be involved in either of their wars. And so there's that limit there. But then if you look at the kind of contents of the treaty, which is - it's a really interesting treaty. It's quite long - is there's certain provisions in there that actually lead to larger opportunities of defense cooperation. So it offers an opportunity for their partnership to become more embedded, but it's not an alliance.
SUMMERS: Nicole Grajewski is a professor at Sciences Po in France. Her book is "Russia And Iran." Thanks so much.
GRAJEWSKI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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