Of course, it depends who you ask. For instance, the Israeli would not doubt that Iran, the country whose leader has repeatedly talked about the need to destroy Israel, is more dangerous that the U.S., which has provided strong support for it over the past several decades. Israel will still feel safer with the U.S. even if its policy in the Middle East makes Iran a bigger threat than before. Meanwhile, in the eyes of Lebanese Shiites, the U.S. is the hated aggressor, while Iran is the protector.
Iran may appear to be an undisputed, grave threat to the Bush administration and to many in America, but no matter how hard U.S. officials try to persuade the world of the extreme danger of Irans nuclear program, there does not seem to be a solid agreement on this issue, notwithstanding the recent UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran.
For its part, Russia has long refused to support the position of the U.S. on Iran. When it finally agreed to join the December resolution, Russia made its vote conditional. It demanded that the reference to Bushehr, the nuclear power plant Russia is building in Iran, be removed from the original version. Russias demand was met.
In his recent foreign policy speech in Munich, president Putin sounded just mildly disappointed with Iran. He said he understood that the international community has concerns about the character and quality of Irans nuclear programs and did not understand why the Iranian party has still not reacted in a positive and constructive way to these concerns. He suggested that we need to work patiently and carefully and to create incentives and show the Iranian leadership that cooperation with the international community is much better than confrontation.
Compared to his angry rhetoric about the U.S. in that same speech, president Putins words about Iran apparently meant that, in his view, it presents much less danger to the world than the America. He made it clear that he did not trust U.S. claims that it does not build strategic offensive weapons. He spoke repeatedly about the unipolar world imposed by the United States -- the world of one master, one sovereign, in which nobody feels secure anymore. He said that the U.S. policy leads to arms race and the almost uncontained use of forceis plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.
The Russian people are highly responsive to its officials increasingly anti-American rhetoric and to the media narrative that portrays the United States as an evil force seeking to undermine Russia. In a June 2006 poll, the Russians were asked which countries they see as friends and which as foes. 37% named the U.S an enemy, up from 23% the previous year. Only 5% thought of America as a friend, down from 11% in 2005. Its not that the Russian people are fond of Iran. It just doesnt concern them much. In the cited 2006 poll, 4% thought of Iran as a friend and 5% percent as an adversary (the numbers in 2005 were about the same).
Pugnacious tone aside, Putins assessment of the U.S. policy is hard to disagree with. But Irans nuclear program combined with its urge to reassert itself as the regional leader is way more dangerous than the Russian political establishment or the Russian people are willing to admit. Besides, this is not an either/or threat. Both are gravely dangerous and, moreover, interrelated. An arrogant and reckless U.S. foreign policy has greatly contributed to Irans defiance.
The obvious difference between the two threats is that the bad consequences of the U.S. policy in Iraq is a daily reality for everybody to see on TV news shows, while a nuclear Iran is a matter for the future. Since its hard to tell exactly when it will become a reality and how it will affect the world, it is tempting to wave off a nuclear Iran and go on blaming the Bush administration for the damage it has inflicted. But the threat of nuclear Iran will not go away. There is great need for a cohesive international policy to resolve this crisis. But, unfortunately, there is very little hope that a rational joint strategy is possible in todays world.
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