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...short answer is: because he was invited. Russia is convening two back-to-back summits of significant global importance this week. Moscow is a key player in both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Chinese-driven body aimed at improving ties with Russia and Central Asia, and the so-called BRIC group - a gang of four emerging world powers in Brazil, Russia, India and China. With the SCO and BRIC meeting at the same place, much of the non-Western world's geopolitical muscle is now rubbing shoulders in the shadow of the Urals. And the Iranian President, who never...
What the Iranian President thinks will emerge in its place is far less obvious. The SCO, in particular, has been perceived since its founding in 2001 as a growing foil to U.S. interests in West Asia. Originally formed to develop dialogue on trade and security issues among nations with old histories of enmity, the SCO comprises China, Russia and four Central Asian states hovering within both Beijing and Moscow's spheres of influence - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Tehran under Ahmadinejad had long petitioned to be part of this group but has settled for "observer" status alongside India and Pakistan...
...past, the SCO has worked to stave off the threat of Islamist militancy in Central Asia, but it declared in 2005 that all U.S. military bases in the region's post-Soviet republics must have a timeline for withdrawal - a move on both Beijing and Moscow's part to stymie U.S. influence. Already, the U.S.'s pivotal Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan has been ordered to cease operations...
Some Western analysts see the SCO's rise as a rival bloc to NATO, though these fears are, in the present climate, likely overblown. Beijing and Moscow regard each other with equal measures of warmth and distrust. The Central Asian countries tagging along are also keen to pit the Chinese and Russians against each other in a global scramble for the vast reserves of natural resources lurking beneath the region's rolling steppe and in the Caspian Sea. Still, in the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have presented something of a united front when it comes to Iran. Their...
...pipeline, running from Iran's fields through Afghanistan and into Pakistan and India, is a massive project that appeals to all parties involved. Conversation in Yekaterinburg will surely include the need to shore up the region's economies - China has already promised a $10 billion soft loan to its SCO allies, including Russia, which has been hit particularly hard by the fallout of the world's financial crisis. Few will raise thornier questions of political reform. After all, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, can hardly hold the moral high ground and chide Ahmadinejad for jury...