Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- When Russians look at Iran, they
see a country that has been their neighbor and rival forever.
As the Russian empire advanced, it wrestled the North and
South Caucasus from the Shah. Peter the Great annexed,
briefly, Iran’s entire Caspian Sea coastline and put his
forces just north of Tehran.
In the early 20th century, Russia and the U.K. divided
Iran into zones of influence. The Russians got the north and
proceeded to occupy Iran twice, during each of the world wars.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with
Josef Stalin in Tehran in 1943, they were protected by the Red
Army.
