Analysis: Russia-Iran courtship has its limits Russia and Iran have converging interests in oil and gas exports, Iran's nuclear program and support for Syria's President Bashar Assad, but on each issue they are as much competitors as allies.

Oren Dorell | USA TODAY

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Iran Monday highlights multiple converging interests between the two countries, but it's unclear the courtship will turn into a lasting marriage.

Russia and Iran are both major oil and gas exporters, they've long collaborated on Iran's disputed nuclear program, and their militaries are both supporting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad in Syria's four-year civil war. But on each issue, Iran and Russia are as much competitors as allies, says Suzanne Maloney, an Iran analyst at the Brookings Institution.

"They have competing interests when it comes to oil," Maloney says. And "simply because they both are helping to defend Assad doesn’t mean their goals are identical or that what happens on the ground works to equal benefit for both parties."

Russia seeks to sell refined nuclear fuel and technology to Iran, which seeks to expand parts of its nuclear program as allowed under the recently signed agreement aimed at keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But years of performance issues and on-off progress at Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant have prompted Iran to look to Europe for foreign assistance.

In the petroleum market, Iran and Russia also have different aims. Iran, whose economy has been stifled by years of nuclear sanctions, plans to develop its oil and natural gas fields and increase output by 1 million barrels a day, or about 25%, by mid-2016, says energy analyst Sara Vakhshouri, of SVB Energy International in Washington. That will put downward pressure on prices that are already at their lowest point in decades, Vakhshouri wrote in a recent study.

Russia, which is facing economic sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, wants energy prices to rise, which would require a decrease in the global petroleum supply.

In Syria, cooperation between the two countries is tainted by different goals and mutual distrust, according to current and former Western diplomats in Washington.

“Russia and Iran share the objective of perpetuating Bashar al-Assad in power for as long as possible but they have completely different reasons for wanting that result,” says Fred Hof, who led the Obama administration’s failed effort to seek peace talks between Syria and Israel before the outbreak of Syria’s civil war. The U.S. goal at the time was to break the link between Iran and the powerful Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, which Iran supplies through Syria.

“The Iranians have come to the conclusion based on 15 years of evidence that Bashar Assad personally is crucial to helping them maintain support for Hezbollah,” said Hof, who is now at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Hezbollah maintains an arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel, giving Iran leverage over the Jewish state. And Syria has allowed Iranian advisers and weapons to pass freely to the Lebanese Shiite militia, which the U.S. State Department designates as a terrorist organization. Israel has launched air strikes on multiple occasions to prevent such weapons transfers since the beginning of Syria's civil war.

“The Iranians fear that if Bashar Assad is shuffled off the stage that his regime will collapse, and beside Bashar his family and his close circle around him, there is not support in Syria for subordinating the country’s interests to Hezbollah,” Hof said.

Russia’s interests in Syria are not about Hezbollah. Putin’s goal is to demonstrate that “Russia stands by its friends, and that Russia will defeat what Putin says is this American strategy of democratization and regime change in the Middle East and around the world,” Hof said.

On the ground in Syria, Russia and Iran support different factions among the forces supporting Assad. Iran supports Hezbollah and thousands of militia members it has organized and transported to Syria from Afghanistan and Iraq. Russia works with the Syrian military, as it has for decades.

“The Russians and Iranians are approaching this from different directions,” Hof said. “They may not agree on everything but they do agree that Bashar should stay in the saddle. For the Russians, he should stay in at least long enough to throw in against (the Islamic State). For Iran, he should stay in power at least as long as they need Hezbollah to pressure Israel.”