Iran has never fitted in frameworks in which various conquerors tried to squeeze it. The efforts of Alexander the Great (the legendary Iskandar Zulkarnain of the Persian-Tajik literature) to subdue the Achaemenid Iran led only to the creation of the Hellenistic States, which up to now amaze by an original blend of Iranian and Greek philosophy and culture.

Eleven centuries later, Iran successfully “digested” the Arabs by delivering to the world the mysterious philosophy and psycho-physical practice of Sufism, running through the classical dogma of Islam with heritage of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and the Eastern Christian heresies. The Turks failed to cope with Iran too; they could not subjugate and assimilate the country. They had eventually to throw their efforts over the weakening Eastern Roman Empire.

In a word - Iran has been and remains one of the oldest, very strong Eurasian civilizations. The Eurasian project, first mentioned by the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin in early October this year, as a strategic foreign-policy objective, logically suggests several levels or stages of consolidation, built on the principle of concentric circles in the polar point of which there is Russia.

The first is the forming up of a controlled and powerful Russia (which has been consistently and successfully implemented since the end of 1999). The second stage is the consolidation within the CIS (and even within the Former Soviet Union). This stage has already passed partially - EurAsEC, CSTO, and the successive formation of Customs Union. The next is the third stage of consolidation of Eurasia, including the consolidation of Russia with countries outside the CIS, connected with it by the vitally important interests - the so-called “subjective partners.” This may be both the economy and the spiritual life (for example, Orthodox Serbia), and security issues.

Relations with such countries are based on the principle of complementarity. That is, these countries have something that is vitally important for Russia, and Russia has something vital for these countries, and the strategic exchange of potentials strengthens the both of geopolitical entities. Iran falls just in this category of strategic complementarity too, having with good reason, under conditions of multipolarity, the right to pretend to one of the independent poles. And that is the very thing the American globalism is trying to deprive it of.

By the way, one of such regional geopolitical integration projects has become a “Union of Persian Speaking Countries” whose creation was initiated in 1995 by the Presidents of Tajikistan and Afghanistan Emomali Rakhmonov and Burhanuddin Rabbani. The Union of Persian Speaking Countries consisting of Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and originally conceived as a union of countries with common historical and cultural background, at the present time is quite a viable project, working in many areas of integration in the field of economy and culture.

For Russia, which has strong and longstanding allied relations with Tajikistan and always considering Iran as its eventual ally in the south of Eurasia, the proper functioning of this union means an expansion of policy space.

Since 1948, the radical circles of the Islamic world have permanently scared the State of Israel by the everlasting desire to “throw it into the sea.” Iran succeeded in this rhetoric after the Islamic revolution in February 1979, and it highly irritated Tel Aviv.

Everyone knows that Iran’s nuclear program worries Israel in earnest. With at least 120 nuclear warheads, according to estimates of experts, Israel believes this weapon is worthy only of “civilized people”, and neither the Arabs nor the Iranians! The more especially as the latter has a whole family of ballistic missiles “Shahab” whose radius of action extends to the whole Israel. Hence is the constant readiness for airstrikes on nuclear research facilities throughout the Middle East. True, the West’s fears about the “Iranian nuclear weapons” are incomparable to its reaction to, say, India and Pakistan, being “nuclear” already since 1989. Well, “which is permitted to Jupiter is not allowed to bull...” Neither India nor Pakistan threaten Israel.

A hypothetical war of the West against Iran, in my opinion, is unlikely. The West and, above all, the USA are busy with other things: God grant that they may take to their heels from Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone to be at war with Iran. Besides the fact that this war will bring the West enormous financial and human losses, incomparable to the losses in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, it has a chance to cause the decline of the USA and its allies in the East, whose rating has already fallen due to failure of the “Enduring Freedom”.

As for Tajikistan, here a reaction may be the most severe, up to the rupture of diplomatic relations and active military and technical assistance at the state level. There is every likelihood that in this case the official Dushanbe will turn a blind eye to Tajik volunteers’ trip to Iran. In such a situation, Washington will have to forget for a long time about any political cooperation with Dushanbe.