Abstract The Russian and Iranian governments define their relations as “very close” and “strategic” in many areas. The frontiers of this cooperation, in geopolitical terms, include the south Caucasus, central Asia, Afghanistan, and the oil- and natural gas-rich Caspian basin, while, at the issue level, the cooperation includes the nuclear issue, disarmament, the struggle against terrorism, the Iraqi quagmire, the Palestinian problem, and the U.S. military expansion into Eurasia. The signs of cooperation in these areas are, among others, regular political dialogue and similar attitudes in refusing to include the Lebanese Hizballah on terrorist lists, pursuing political relations with Hamas, maintaining a pro-Arab position on the Arab–Israeli question, objecting to foreign military engagement in Eurasia, and having a common voice during the Israeli–Lebanese conflict in 2006. However, we need to discover the nature of these relations in order to decide whether the close Russian–Iranian relations can be descr...