An update to my post yesterday on the Caucasus and what opportunities may present themselves there for the West in dealing with Iran:

We’ve got progress on point 3 (see last paragraph of yesterday’s post). Looks like Russia has been offered WTO membership in return for cooperation on Iran. Pavel Felgenhauer writing for the Jamestown Foundation yesterday:

There is considerable speculation in Moscow on what specific political deal managed to break the WTO stalemate, some as bizarre as Moscow agreeing not to recognize South Ossetian independence in return. There may be multiple reasons for the sudden change of heart in the Bush administration, other than progress on fighting piracy and better tariffs. Simply having Russia inside the WTO and abiding by its rules may be in everybody’s interest. However, there is another issue that currently dominates U.S.-Russian relations — Iran.

Yesterday, November 14, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced at a press conference in Tehran plans to build 60,000 gas centrifuges to enrich uranium. The UN yesterday accused Iran, Syria, and several other countries of smuggling weapons into Somalia to arm Islamic militants of the Islamic Courts Union. The same report accuses Iran of seeking to swap weapons for uranium in Somalia. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has prepared yet another report that accuses Iran of continuing secret nuclear activities.

[..] Iran has only minute deposits of natural uranium. Last September Moscow agreed to supply some 100 tons of nuclear fuel uranium for Bushehr by March 2007. If Iran diverts only a small percentage of this already substantial amount of enriched uranium into its gas centrifuge complex, nothing short of military action may stop it going nuclear in a year or two.

Is the sudden WTO deal a sign that Washington and Moscow may still reach an agreement on Iran?

[..] Putin has said that it is counterproductive to corner Iran. However, Russia does not want a neighbor that has territorial claims in the Caspian Sea to go nuclear. Putin plans a short summit with Bush in a Moscow airport during a refueling stopover, and then both go to the summit in Hanoi. Putin clearly wants to hear what — if anything — Bush may offer on top of the WTO agreement and compare it with Ahmadinejad’s bid.

Then Stratfor picked up the ball today (subscribers only):

Bush certainly has an incentive, then, to talk to Putin about butting out of the U.S.-Iran dialogue. He might not even be asking Russia to stop being friendly with Tehran — which would be unrealistic anyway — so much as asking it not to make things more difficult for the United States on this particular issue. To encourage such cooperation, the Bush administration stood down from 13 years of conflict and offered Russia a way into the WTO. The implied threat remains, of course, that Washington could scupper the deal if Russia does not play ball on Iran.

It would not be the first time the two have engaged in political horse-trading. Russian support of the UNSC resolution condemning North Korea’s nuclear tests likely came in exchange for U.S. support on a resolution condemning Georgian occupation of Abkhazia’s Kodori Gorge. Iran and the WTO are issues of greater magnitude, however.

Putin is currently in a strong position vis-ˆ-vis Bush, whose Republican Party lost the midterm congressional elections and who sorely needs a success in the Middle East. Russia prioritizes the political over the economic, and if its relationship with Iran or its accession agreement to the WTO impede its goals, it is just as likely to withdraw. The United States has that option as well — at least on the WTO front — but it needs to come to some kind of understanding with Tehran. Bush might be hoping that a high-level tete-a-tete with Putin will seal the deal on Iran, just as the WTO deal is being sealed at the top level. The details can come later.