Iran - Just A Conduit for Russia to Dominate Middle East?

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Some say the same thing about the US and Israel. Does Russia use Iran to gain influence and power in the area by means of The Unseen Hand?

Iran and Russia are allies of convenience, we pushed them into each other's arms. The Soviets supported the secular socialist Saddam over theocratic Iran who declared Islam incompatible with communism, might seem like a big deal to us but it is in Iran. Russia has been working hard in the last year to repair its relations with Sunni Muslim nations like Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. As relations with the US become more chilled it is thawing with Russia's offer to build nuclear reactors is being taken up. The Saudis aren't dumb, they see closer relations with Russia as a round about way of containing Iran and Syria. Turkey no longer has any illusions about a future in Europe as evidence by the consolidation of power by Erdogan, Egypt hasn't had the same relationship with the US militarily since their revolution and are need going to Russians instead of us. They're all starting to rethink their alliance with the United States, you can expect the Saudis to start throwing their weight around way more independent of the US as we can already see in Yemen. Russia is just manipulating the situation, US foreign policy has been a failure and they're going to reap the benefits.

I think the US needs to repair its relations with Russia, it would be the smartest thing we can do if we're serious about avoiding war with Iran and stopping ISIS.

What exactly are you asking?

Is Russia doing the same thing that the US does which is: trying to advance its interests in a region by making by making friends, and influencing people?

Of course it is. And why not? What do you expect Russia to do?

Its neither surprising, nor is it "unseen".

The Iranian regime is a free agent. Conceivably they could switch to cooperating with the US.

Shortly after 9-11 Iran and the US almost became official allies against Al Queda. And right now the two nations are kinda unwitting allies against ISIS.

Iran's current "adventurism" (backing Assad, and Hezbollah) is Teheran's own idea. Putin isn't forcing them to do it. If that's what you mean. But Teheran's and Moscow's interests do happen to coincide in backing Assad, and in other things. So for now they are allies.

Local politics just doesn't stay local. It would be nice if always did stay local.

In the 1930's a civil war broke out in Spain. Outside nations began to aid the opposing sides, which in turn caused the outside nations to start lining up into alliances with each other: the Western democracies, and communist Russia on one side; and Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy on the other (setting the stage for the coming world war).

Similarly: a civil war broke out in Syria two years ago: and now Israel, the Saudies, NATO, and the USA, are forming one camp. And Iran, Russia, and China, the other. Not saying that its gonna cause a world war. Just sayin' the local chess game became part of the global chess game. As often happens.

A while back a local insurgency broke out against British rule in a group of colonies. And the British almost crushed the rebels, but the rebels got massive aid from Britain's rival powers -especially France, and finally won- and the new USA appeared. In a sense the USA is the product of France trying to stick it to Britain.

Well it is unseen because they do it in ways that are not obvious. They don't invade Iran, and take it over, trying to undermine the Iranian culture, replacing it with a Russian one and then use it as a satellite, attempting to decide the fates of other Islamic countries in the immediate area.

Instead, they sell them weapons and encourage activities which destabilize.

Do you realize how involved the US was in Iraq when Saddam gained control of that country? Check out April Glaspie. Look at how the US meddled in Iran with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Iran was becoming somewhat westernized and that particular Shah liked America. It causes a population to become nervous when they see leaders from two vastly different countries cozying up and then the revolution, which Pahlavi fled to the US where we kept him while Iran took Americans hostage in the capitol, Tehran.

This is why subtlety is required. An entire region can become unstable due to one loose cannon. Now we have Iran preparing the fight ISIS but what about Iranian sponsored terrorism?

You have a war between Iranian sponsored Shias against ISIS in Syria, another against ISIS in Iraq. It is a continuation of the Iraqi/Iranian war.

Your post is based upon a false analogy. The relationship between Moscow and Teheran today is nothing like the relationship between the US and Teheran in the original Cold War era.

The Shah "liked America" because we helped keep him in power. In fact he was exiled before, in 1953, and we reinstated him after the CIA engineered a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian prime minister whom we and the Shah didn't like. We put the Shah back on the thrown, and helped keep him propped up for the next several decades.

Putin did not install the Shiite theocracy in Iran in 1979.

Russia and Iran aren't as close as you think, Assad's Syria is closer to the Russians, and there was a military presence there.

Russians and the Iranian have had runs in over the construction of a nuclear power station. It is a love/hate relationship.

Russia supported Saddam against the Iranians in the 80s, there is no love lost between them. It's a strategic partnership.

Syria has a special military importance to Russia as they have a naval base(their only one on Mediterranean Sea) in Tartus which is in the Alawite homeland that Assad hails from, also they're the main military supplier of Syria and have billions of dollar in weapons contracts.

More cynically, Russia benefits from these wars as it has drawn insurgents out of Caucasus