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that it impresses on Moscow the services that Tehran can render in
strengthening Moscow's anti-unipolarism credo, which was spelled out
by President Dmitry Medvedev in his major foreign policy speech last
week. Tapping into Cold War lexicon, Medvedev openly mentioned
Russia's intention to pursue a "sphere of influence" in politics and
made a point of mentioning "not only with neighbors".

As various Russian experts, including at the Russian Center for
Strategic Studies, have pointed out, Russia in the aftermath of the
Georgia crisis is now inclined to strengthen its ties with countries
such as Iran and Venezuela. In light of the Georgia visit this week by
US Vice President Dick Cheney, reviled by Premier Vladimir Putin as
directly responsible for triggering the Georgia crisis for election
purposes, the growing rift between the US and Russia simultaneously
represents an opportunity for Tehran both to neutralize UN Security
Council efforts to impose tighter sanctions on Iran over the nuclear
program and explore further, and more meaningful, strategic
cooperation with Russia and the Latin left vis-a-vis the common threat
of US unipolarism.

On balance, the post-Cold War record of US unipolarism has been less
than desirable. There are many examples of blatant interventionism,
bullying and war-mongering that have risked world peace. And now with
both the US presidential candidates, Democratic Senator Barack Obama
and Republican John McCain, sold on the notion of maintaining the US's
pre-eminence in global politics, we must expect continuity with the
pattern of post-Cold War policies having the upper hand, albeit with
new nuances if Obama wins.

Foreign policy advisors of Ahmadinejad are openly counting on Iran's
new relations with Latin America as one of the net gains of his
presidency. In fact, the new level of cooperation between Iran and
Bolivia and other Latin and Central American countries is a timely,
further confirmation of the strategic vision and outlook that they
have brought to the government, compared with the Mohammad Khatami
government that pushed the arch of detente with the West almost to the
exclusion of all else.

Ahmadinejad's foreign policy team is now busy contemplating the next
moves now that the Russians are putting to the backburner their
hesitations for closer relations with countries labeled "rogue" by the
West.

"As far as Iran is concerned the recent summit of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization [SCO] in Dushanbe was a success because China
and Russia agreed to expand the role and input of observer nations at
the SCO, and that includes Iran," a Tehran political analyst told Asia
Times Online. As a result, Iran is today one small leap shy of fully
joining the SCO, and membership is only a matter of time as far as
Tehran is concerned.

Clearly, the windfalls from the Georgia crisis for Iran are
multiplying and Iran's deft Latin diplomacy is meant to add to the new
dynamism for geopolitical and geostrategic cooperation with Russia
(and China). As a middle power (and not a "tiny one" as derided by
Obama recently), Iran as a result of its active global diplomacy in
the Non-Aligned Movement has a rather disproportionate global
influence that far outweighs its paltry contribution to global economy
(less than 1%), and is well-positioned and predisposed to bandwagoning
with a new global anti-hegemonic front.

Using its petrodollars to solidify its networks, Iran has already
entered into several economic agreements with Venezuela, Nicaragua and
Cuba; should Ahmadinejad win re-election next year, his second term
will likely deepen these ties even further.

At the same time, the prospect of closer Iran-Russia relations
directly impacts Washington's thinking about Iran, given White House's
reluctance to consent to a new round of US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's
security and or to take Iran's serious misgivings about a US-Iraq
security agreement into consideration.

Put simply, ignoring Iran is not an option for Washington any longer
as Iran can effectively act as Moscow's junior partner sowing the
threads of organic connection to the Latin (and indeed world's)
leftist or populist governments. The more organic, or multi-faceted,
such ties, the more value and importance attached to Iran by the key
SCO nations, Russia and China, which can be seen in the visit of
Bolivia's president - Iran's diplomacy performs both regionally and
globally.

At this stage it is unclear if China actually favors such a new
development, or if Russia is resolved toward this line, since Moscow
appears intent on a measure of damage control with the West in the
midst of these upheavals, and certainly cooperation with the West on
Iran's nuclear program can have the protean value of healing some
wounds.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs,
Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also
wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus
Fiction. For his Wikipedia entry, click here.