March 31, 2026
Newsweek - Russia Cashes In As Iran Weakens—at a Rising Strategic Cost
Russia and Iran were supposed to be strategic partners. They signed a comprehensive partnership treaty last year, pledging deeper defense cooperation and economic integration. When the United States struck Iran, some predicted Russia would stand by its ally. Instead, Moscow has treated Tehran's war as a business opportunity—pocketing oil windfalls, leveraging Western desperation for energy and bleeding U.S. military resources through covert intelligence sharing, all while risking nothing of its own.
By every short-term measure, Russia is winning a war it is not fighting. But the Middle East that Russia spent two decades inserting itself into is being reshaped by forces Moscow can neither direct nor contain, and the long-term costs may outweigh the dividends.
Read the full article on Newsweek.
Joseph Epstein is the Director of the Turan Research Center.