[PhilDragoo]

Russia has no interest in helping the U.S. remove the mullahs from power. The opposite is true.

[Iris7]

This is true to an extent. In another way this is part of Russia's negotiation with the United States, with China and Europe, and with their own moslem "minorities". Again, the logic of power controls events in Moscow just as it does in Washington.

The Russians intervene on the side of the "weaker", the Mullahs. The USA intervened on the side of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation for the same reasons. The Reagan Doctrine worked the same way.