Despite Close Ties With Iran, Russia Stands Aside as Israel Attacks
But five months after that treaty was signed, the government in Iran is facing a grave threat to its rule from attacks by Israel. And Russia, beyond phone calls and condemnatory statements, is nowhere to be found.
Iranian nuclear facilities and energy installations have been damaged, and many of the country's top military leaders killed, in a broad Israeli onslaught that began Friday and has since expanded, with no sign that Moscow will come to Tehran's aid.
'Russia, when it comes to Iran, must weigh the possibility of a clash with Israel and the United States, so saving Iran is obviously not worth it,' said Nikita Smagin, an expert on Russia-Iran relations. 'For Russia, this is just a fact.'
The situation reflects a dispassionate political calculus by Moscow, which is prioritizing its own war against Ukraine, as well as its need to maintain warm relations with other partners in the Middle East, which have helped Moscow survive Western economic sanctions, analysts say.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
14 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Former UC Berkeley professor sues, says she was denied job because she is Israeli
A former UC Berkeley professor and dance researcher accused the university on Wednesday of refusing to rehire her because she is from Israel, alleging the administration caved to a campus backlash against Israel after the start of the Gaza war in 2023. In a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court, Yael Nativ said she started teaching a course on 'Intersectional Perspective on Contemporary Dance in Israel' as a visiting professor at Berkeley in January 2022. The class went well, and in July 2023 Nativ was asked by the school's Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies to apply to teach another course the following spring, the suit said. The invitation expressed 'gratitude for her prior work,' and Nativ was 'thrilled' to receive it, her lawyers said. But they said the atmosphere, and the university's position, changed drastically after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, followed by Israel's counterattack. In November 2023, the suit said, SanSan Kwan, chair of the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, told Nativ she would not be rehired. 'Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry,' Kwan said in a message on WhatsApp, according to the lawsuit. 'I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.' Kwan did not mention Israel, but the suit said it was a clear message that Nativ was being rejected because of her origins. Rebecca Golbert, executive director of the Helen Diller Institute, also understood the decision to be based on Nativ's Israeli birthplace and considered the rejection to be 'misguided,' the suit said. Nativ has a college degree from the Sorbonne Institute in Paris, a master of arts degree in creative arts education from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in Sociology of Education from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has taught at colleges in Israel and is chairwoman of the Israeli Choreographers Association. UC Berkeley deprived her of 'an employment and educational opportunity that would have significantly benefited her career' and violated California laws against discrimination based on national origin, the suit said. Nativ seeks damages for lost income and emotional distress and a ban on such discrimination in the future, but she does not directly demand that she be rehired. UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said Wednesday he was not allowed to comment on 'personnel matters' such as the lawsuit. But he said the university 'is committed to confronting harassment and discrimination of all types' and to complying with the law. Golbert, of the Helen Diller Institute, could not be reached for comment. Several of Nativ's lawyers are from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, an organization that has filed other cases accusing universities of antisemitism. One suit in November 2023 accused UC Berkeley of promoting antisemitism by allowing some student groups to bar Zionists as speakers at their meetings. A federal judge refused to dismiss the suit this April. Another suit last month accused Stanford University of fostering prejudice against a Jewish insulin researcher who was allegedly forced to resign by harassment from coworkers and supervisors.
Washington Post
15 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump says he has ‘solved' 7 conflicts. Here's what to know about them.
Amid President Donald Trump's push to secure a peace deal in Ukraine, he has taken frequent opportunity to claim success in efforts to end other conflicts around the world. In recent days, he repeated claims to have ended six, and on Tuesday, the list grew to seven: He appeared to have been missing one. Some of the conflicts in question, such as the 12-day exchange after Israel attacked Iran, loomed large for the American public. Some were more obscure, if they could be considered conflicts at all. In some, his role was clear. In others, it remains contested, or analysts warned that lasting peace could be elusive. He has long emphasized his role as a dealmaker. He has said he wants to be remembered for building peace — and to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. In recent remarks, he said that he was solving roughly one war per month. 'I've solved seven wars,' Trump said during an appearance Tuesday on 'Fox & Friends.' If 'I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons,' he added later, referring to his push to end the war in Ukraine. In confirmation of the figure the president has cited, the White House said Tuesday that Trump has solved seven conflicts, so many that even White House reporters can't keep them straight. Here's a list of the conflicts that Trump has said he has solved and where they stand now. The ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave long administered by Armenia within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan, was forced to flee en masse in September 2023 as Azerbaijani forces took the territory by force. After four decades of conflict, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a deal that included a peace framework meant to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, at the White House earlier this month. 'It's a long time, 35 years, they fought, and now they're friends, and they're going to be friends for a long time,' Trump said to the cameras at the signing ceremony. Under the agreement, the U.S. gained exclusive rights to develop a transit corridor linking Azerbaijan with the contested territory of Nakhchivan, an energy-rich enclave sandwiched between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. The corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), could shift the regional security balance, giving the U.S. a foothold between Iran and Russia and offering Turkey new trade access to Asia. What the leaders signed on Aug. 8 was largely an economic partnership, not a full-on peace deal. Khazar Ibrahim, the Azerbaijan ambassador to the United States, said the Trump deal was not a formal peace agreement and that Azerbaijan has not signed one because the Armenian constitution still refers to territory claimed by Azerbaijan as Armenian. 'We have been very clear, the Armenia constitution still has territorial claims against us, so we don't want to have a stillborn document,' Ibrahim said. Until Armenia's constitution is changed, peace would not be possible, he said. But Ibrahim said he believed Trump's efforts would result in more peaceful relations with Armenia. 'It's essential to have a strong political will from a strong global leader. That is what I believe was lacking and that is what I believe now exists,' he said. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has expressed concerns over the U.S.-brokered deal, describing the prospect of U.S. companies near Iran's northern border as 'worrying' in an interview with state television before his trip to Armenia this week. Leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda gathered in the Oval Office on June 27 to sign a U.S.-brokered deal that aimed to temper a decades-long conflict that has left millions dead. The agreement introduced a new security coordination mechanism and inked state commitments to stop arming local groups and to facilitate the return of various refugee populations, many displaced since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. While Trump celebrated 'a glorious triumph for the cause of peace,' some experts and diplomats have been more circumspect, noting that one of the main parties in the conflict, the M23 rebel group, was not party to the U.S. deal and continues to operate. 'This hasn't solved the problem,' said Michelle Gavin, a former U.S. ambassador to Botswana and National Security Council member during the Obama administration. Armed forces have yet to withdraw from eastern Congo following the deal, she said. Like the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the deal promises the expansion of 'significant' investments facilitated by the U.S. government and private groups, who probably hope to tap into the region's mineral reserves, valued at $24 trillion by the U.S. Commerce Department. 'It is a mineral deal first, an opportunity for peace second,' Lewis Mudge, Human Rights Watch's Central Africa director, wrote in a statement. 'Making the deal work will depend on continued monitoring by the U.S. government and support from Congress.' Serbia and Kosovo have not been engaged in active conflict since the late 1990s, but the Trump administration said it prevented new violence. The president of Kosovo backed Trump's claim, saying that Serbia had planned to attack Kosovo in May before Trump intervened. 'What I can say at this point is that there were renewed efforts by Serbia to endanger peace,' said Vjosa Osmani, the president of Kosovo, who credited Trump with preventing the outbreak of war but said she couldn't reveal additional information because the specifics were 'classified.' The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has denied any plans for an attack. The White House says it has resolved tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over a long-standing dam dispute, but in this case there is no apparent agreement. Egypt and Ethiopia have been at odds for years over water rights and the massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance hydroelectric dam in Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, a major Nile tributary upriver from Egypt. Cairo fears the dam, the construction of which began 14 years ago, could rob Egypt of its share of Nile waters. Trump attempted to mediate the dispute during his first term, but negotiations stalled. It's unclear to what extent talks have restarted under Trump's second term, but tensions between the two counties appear to have eased, which analysts say is due in part to heavy rainfall. Egypt is primarily concerned with how Ethiopia will operate the dam during times of drought. The embassies of Egypt and Ethiopia in Washington did not respond immediately to queries about the status of the dispute or Trump's role in mediating it. After 10 days of conflict between two nuclear armed powers, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire May 10. Trump said he headed off the escalatory tit-for-tat. Pakistan praised Trump as a peacemaker. But India denied a U.S. role, a stance that appears to have contributed to the fading friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a tense call on June 17 after Trump left a world leaders' summit early and canceled his in-person meeting with Modi, the Indian premier told Trump that India 'does not and will never accept mediation,' according to an Indian readout. Trump took offense at being denied credit and imposed a punishing 50 percent tariff on India in August, amid a trade dispute in part over India's Russian oil imports. On July 24, Thailand launched airstrikes on Cambodia, escalating a skirmish between the two countries, which share a disputed 508-mile border and a decades-old enmity. As Cambodia retaliated with artillery and the casualty count rose, tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border fled. Two days later, Trump stepped in. 'We happen to be, by coincidence, currently dealing on Trade with both Countries, but do not want to make any Deal, with either Country, if they are fighting — And I have told them so!' Trump posted on Truth Social. The threat appeared to work. On July 28, Trump said a ceasefire had been reached and instructed his trade teams to restart negotiations. 'I have now ended many Wars in just six months — I am proud to be the President of PEACE!' he posted. After 12 days of fighting between Iran and Israel in June that began with an Israeli attack on Iran — a conflict that included U.S. strikes on sites key to Iran's nuclear program — the Trump administration pushed for a ceasefire, which has held. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f--- they're doing,' Trump told reporters when attacks launched by both sides threatened the ceasefire in its infancy. In the run-up to the conflict, Trump had been pushing for a renewed nuclear deal with Iran. Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Limits of Trump's diplomacy clear as Moscow balks at Ukraine plan
Just days after the White House celebrated splashy summits with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine as foreign policy victories, the Kremlin has signaled that its position has barely budged, prompting foreign policy experts to suggest that Washington's insistence it had made progress was a sign of wishful thinking.
