Fridman: Iran Showed Lukashenka His Uselessness
- 15.03.2023, 8:40
Agenda disappointed the Belarusian dictator.
“Unexpected topics were included in the Iranian visit agenda failed to meet everyone’s expectations.”
The Filin Telegram channel asked political analyst Alexander Fridman to figure out the main results of the Belorussian ruler’s visit to Iran.
– International reaction is the first point here. Lukashenka hit the world media newslines once again. They wrote about this, since the visit was not usual. Almost no one visits Iran usually. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the general context of the war, and also the context of the military collaboration between Teheran and Moscow.
The second point. If we look at this story from a formal point of view, then this visit did not become a significant event for Iran, this is not that political figure. Erdogan, Putin and Xi Jinping visited the country. Lukashenka is a small figure in comparison with them.
The third point is that everyone expected a discussion of the war in Ukraine during this visit. And what have we today? Ukraine was not mentioned at all there. When Lukashenka was in China, he said that he supported the peace plan proposed by Beijing.
There were no references of military collaboration, neither in the statements of the Belarusian delegation nor in the statements of Iranians. Thus, the agenda of the visit failed to meet all the expectations and were not included there.
However, economic collaboration was included. It’s the fourth point. And not only economic, but also diversified cooperation. However, all this was presented with fanfare, but there was nothing significant originally.
Both countries are under sanctions, their capabilities are quite limited, so one should hardly expect much success from this cooperation.
And the fifth point. It’s symbolic. Iran emphasized it even more strongly than Lukashenka did. That all together we are the part of the anti-American alliance.
It follows from the quotes of the Khamenei's speech that got into the press, that he was not interested in Belarus at all. It looked like he used the guest from Minsk in order to promote his anti-Western and anti-American rhetorics.
We can say that Lukashenka is the most harmless of all leaders of the so-called axis of evil from the Teheran’s point of view. This visit did not become some super-important event for Iran.
They actually have completely different issues on the agenda. I’m talking about their nuclear program, and leaving their isolation. For example, the fact that they are going to improve relations with Saudi Arabia, and that they are going to have diplomatic relations with this state, is much more important news for Iran. And they are much more discussed than Lukashenka's visit.