Russia's 'cool war' against the US in the Middle East

02 April 2007

Moscow's growing attention to the Middle East continues, part of a new global strategy espoused by a more assertive and ambitious Russia. President Vladimir Putin pays much more attention to the region than his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, ever did. In the last two years, he has paid a historic first visit to Israel, visited oil- and gas-rich Algeria and, in another diplomatic first, toured the Gulf states.

He has established a firm personal friendship with King Abdullah II of Jordan and charmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Moscow makes a point of regularly talking to those the United States, and sometimes even Europe, consider pariahs - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the Hamas leadership. Major Russian companies are eyeing the region closely and Russian arms manufacturers hold out firmly against Western competitors and continue to irritate Washington by selling arms to Iran and Syria.

Why? There is one overriding reason: Russia's - or rather the Kremlin's - enduring obsession with the US victory in the Cold War. The current policy is aimed at getting at least partially even with America. The policy itself is nothing new. Originally from the Soviet days, it came back into fashion in the mid-1990s, especially after Yevgeny Primakov became Russia's foreign minister and later prime minister. It was he who was (and still is) one of the most prominent proponents of the so called "multi-polar world" view - a theory that really just serves as a flimsy disguise for opposing America's preponderance in global affairs.

But the difference is that today, as opposed to the days of Yeltsin, Russia has sizeable resources from oil and gas exports to back up this line. America's difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan serve as an additional encouragement for the Kremlin since Washington's hand in the region is perceived as weak.

Quite a few people in Russia's military-industrial and atomic energy industries derive direct material benefit from Moscow's vigorous Middle East policy. But the policy should primarily be seen in an ideological light. Anything goes if it serves the goal of checking US influence. Hence, the refusal by the FSB - Russia's security service - to put Hizbullah on the list of terrorist organizations (the official explanation was that it does not operate in Russia). One of Russia's leading defense correspondents, Ivan Safronov of Kommersant newspaper, recently died in mysterious circumstances while allegedly investigating clandestine sales of Russian arms to Iran and Syria. To Washington's consternation, Moscow remains Iran's staunchest international advocate.

Speaking in Munich recently, Putin stressed that Russia always conducted and will continue to conduct "independent foreign policy." This is another way of saying that Russia does not consider itself an ally of the West, and especially America. The Russian political establishment views the Middle East exactly as a place where such a policy can be pursued with no risk to Russia. Despite protestations to the contrary, Moscow does not see a nuclear Iran as a threat to itself, at least not an immediate one. Russian diplomats and Kremlin administration staffers would admit as much off the record. Islamist radicals in the region are also seen as a separate species from the ones being bred in the North Caucasus. Russia, as opposed to the US or even China, does not depend on the region's energy resources. Finally, domestically the Russian Muslim vote is insignificant compared to, say, France or Britain. All this leaves the Middle East as the ideal field for staking a new claim for global importance.

However, there are limits to this policy. Moscow will pursue it as long as it does not seriously hurt its relations with the US or the European Union. World Trade Organization membership, oil and gas exports and the changing situation in the former republics of the Soviet Union are all much more important for Russia than the Middle East. And it is exactly because it has no vital interests in the region that Russia will never play the kind of tune it played there in the 1960s-1980s.

Middle Eastern leaders know this. Even at the zenith of Soviet power, they never considered Moscow a player of equal standing to the US. Having worked in the region in the 1980s, I remember well a quip by one of its veteran diplomats. "People here like the Russians, but respect the Americans." This remains unchanged. Russia can prevaricate, double-cross and insinuate, but ultimately it will not be able to prevent the West, and especially America, from doing what it wants in the region.

Some call it a "cool war." That, for now, remains the best way to put it.

Konstantin Eggert is Moscow bureau editor for the BBC Russian Service. He is a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter publishing views of Middle Eastern and Islamic affairs.