Daily Star – Lebanon
June 22 2005

Mother Russia, a father no more in the new Middle East

By Vitaly Naumkin
Commentary by
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

In the years since the break-up of the Soviet Union, two differently
directed processes have unfolded simultaneously in Russia’s relations
with the countries of the Middle East. On the one hand, Russia
established and actively developed relations with new partners (this
process began even before the dissolution of the Soviet state). Cases
in point are Israel and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The end
of the cold war, the immigration of a great number of Soviet Jews to
Israel, Russia’s renunciation of a “zero-sum game” in the Middle
East, and the end of the policy of state-sponsored anti-semitism
radically changed the situation in Russo-Israeli relations,
generating an interest among the Russian elite in promoting bilateral
relations of cooperation.

On the other hand, the importance of the Middle East on the list of
Russia’s foreign policy priorities has gradually declined. For
Russia, the region as a whole has not been a supplier of energy
resources (as it is for all Western countries and Japan) or a
forward-deployment base for the defense of its interests and those of
its allies (as it is for the United States); indeed, it had no such
bases in the region in the first place.

Despite Russia’s lingering ties of traditional friendship with the
Arab countries, its relations have completely lost their ideological
underpinning and have gradually begun to lose their economic
foundation as well. With the end of the era in which the Soviet Union
rendered assistance on preferential terms in creating industrial
enterprises, and supplied arms on credit to Arab countries, the
volume of trade and economic cooperation between the latter and
Russia has turned out to be extremely low.

Former President Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, beset, indeed, completely
preoccupied, by its own problems, started to lose interest in a
Middle East peace settlement and in a political presence in the
region in general. True, Russia inherited the place of the Soviet
Union as one of the two co-sponsors of the peace process and had an
opportunity to work with all the parties to the conflict. But in
terms of its financial and economic capacities it was no match for
the other co-sponsor, the Unite States. Nor did the Arab countries,
for their part, display much interest in developing relations with
Russia on a new basis; instead, they grieved to see the Soviet Union,
the powerful counterbalance to the U.S., leave the historical arena.

Russia’s relations with Turkey and Iran stand in stark contrast to
the above. These two countries bordering on the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) territory have ranked among the priorities
in terms of Russia’s interests.

Turkey quickly became one of Russia’s main commercial and economic
partners and a major consumer of its energy resources – natural gas
in particular. It was also a major investor and contractor (notably
in construction projects), and a haven for Russian tourists. The
bilateral political conflicts that existed in the first part of the
1990s were gradually mitigated, and the path ahead appears to lead to
further rapprochement.

With Iran things went differently: relations in the economic field
initially lagged behind political relations. Tehran took a major step
in the rapprochement with Russia by taking a constructive approach to
the Tajikistan conflict and in its support for Armenia, Russia’s ally
in the Caucasus. All this allowed Moscow to solve an important
strategic task – ensuring a “friendly environment” along the CIS
perimeter. A new high point in relations with Iran was reached after
the signing of the contract for construction of the atomic power
station at Bushehr. Moscow viewed American (and Israeli) pressure on
this issue as reflecting a desire to oust it from the promising
international atomic energy market. However, as a result of that
pressure, it tightened control over the export of technologies and
materials that may be used in military nuclear and missile programs.

Aggravation of the situation in Chechnya and the increased threat of
international terrorism have modified Russia’s strategic interests in
the Middle East. The task of neutralizing the international terrorist
threat and ensuring a favorable attitude by Middle Eastern states on
the Chechen question has come to the fore. Since September 11, 2001,
the new partner-like relations with the U.S. in the war on terrorism
have significantly impacted on Russia’s policies in the Middle East.
However, Russia’s aversion to American military action in Iraq and
its negative attitude toward the Bush administration’s strategy of
unilateral action as a whole, as well as to its concept of “regime
change,” have predetermined a certain cooling of the partnership.
This has, in turn, affected cooperation regarding a Middle East
settlement to an extent.

In President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, interests and policies in the
region have largely been determined by a “multivector” strategy.
Policy has become more active and even more pragmatic; Russian
business interests have become entrenched; and Russia has
increasingly acted without reference to the positions of other global
players. At the same time, guided by its national interests, Moscow
is keen to avoid actions that would seriously jeopardize its
partner-like relations with the West.

Vitaly Naumkin is president of the International Center for Strategic
and Political Studies, Moscow, the director of the Center for Arab
Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies, and editor-in-chief of
Vostok-ORIENS, the journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This
commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an
online newsletter.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress