REPRINTS
November 21, 2013
Fyodor Lukyanov
Russia is becoming almost the key participant in all political processes in the Near East. During these days alone Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have been in Moscow, one after the other. Sergey Lavrov is participating in a decisive round of talks on Iran by "the six." At the same time Russian diplomats are trying, after all, to set the Syrian "Geneva-2" in motion, communicating with Damascus and with representatives of the opposition, and are continuing work on the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria. Several days ago a Russian-Egyptian meeting was held in Cairo in the "2 + 2" format (the ministers of defense and foreign affairs), and weapons contracts are expected based on its results.
The situation is an unexpected one. Just a few months ago it was considered that Moscow was hopelessly losing its positions in the Near East. The last clients inherited from the Soviet past were losing power in their countries, new ones were not taking shape, and Russian policy was occasioning hostility and rejection on the part of the majority of capitals and religious and ethnic groups in the region.
With what is this turn of events connected?
While paying tribute to the move with chemical weapons, the elegant nature of which was appreciated by all and which will most likely go down in diplomatic history, it has to be admitted that Russia's successes derive from the failure of others.
The main reason is what is happening to the United States. America's line in the region since the start of the "Arab spring" has been of an almost exclusively reactive nature, since Washington has been trying to guess the "correct side of history," guided mainly by ideological instincts (the masses striving for democracy against tyrants). This in itself was confusing, but this fall the situation became sharply exacerbated. On the one hand, Barack Obama's abandonment of the war that was on the point of being declared against Bashar al-Asad demonstrated the presence of common sense in the White House, but on the other hand it dealt a strong blow to the United States' reputation, giving rise in the souls of regional allies to doubts about Washington's reliability. And, accordingly, about the expediency of gambling on America, at least under the present administration.
The consequences were not long appearing. Saudi Arabia, which had already prepared itself to enjoy the fruits of a strike on Damascus, made a public demarche against the United States as a sign of profound disappointment and set about sabotaging the talks on Syria.
All the more so because, having refused to fight, Washington has also gotten really close to something that seemed impossible recently -- a deal with Iran, the sworn enemy of the Saudis, to ease the sanctions against Tehran. This is an entirely unprecedented step, for hitherto all sanctions, once imposed, have subsequently only been beefed up, right up to a military act of retribution.
Israel has also gotten in on the act, for it still does not believe one iota of the Iranians' pacifying promises and reckons that America is either being stupid or being overtly treacherous. Netanyahu set all levers in motion, and it turned out that the Israeli premier has almost more opportunities to influence the US Congress than the US President has.
Relations between Obama and the legislators in general are in free fall, and things are reaching unprecedentedly absurd lengths over the Iranian question.
At the moment when John Kerry is setting out for an important round of talks on Iran's nuclear program -- a round that promises qualitative progress in the direction of a compromise and an easing of sanctions -- Congress is stabbing him in the back by talking about beefing them up. Obama's exhortations with regard to national interests make no impression on the congressmen, increasing the feeling of helplessness in the person who, according to Forbes , is the world's second most powerful politician.
To this picture we should add the unexpected surge of activity on the part of Paris. Because of internal problems and a bewildering leadership, France had, in general, quite receded into the shadows of world politics, but in the talks of "the six" on Iran it suddenly took a very tough and intransigent stand. Various reasons are being named. Some believe that Francois Hollande and his cabinet, who in general have nothing to boast about, are trying to draw at least some attention to themselves. It was no coincidence that the French president set out for Israel with pomp in order at least there to win laurels -- as a best friend of the Jewish state and its defender against Iran. Others believe that France is taking vengeance on Washington, which is interested in an Iranian success, for the humiliating exposes relating to the bugging of the country's citizens and leaders. Finally, it is possible to divine behind Paris' sudden principledness the shade of its new friend Qatar, which has invested quite a lot in the French economy and in relations with specific politicians there in recent years.
The last point is perplexing: It turns out that the planet's most influential states are pursuing the line of regional players of a caliber not comparable with them.
The line that people are forming in order to meet with the Russian leaders is not surprising. Few people liked or like Moscow's position connected with the events in Syria, but it is consistent and essentially has not changed right from the start. You get the feeling that Russia definitely knows what it is doing and what it wants, unlike America and the rest. If, having understood the real interest, we can reach agreement with it on something, then we can make progress on the Syrian question. As for the other countries of "the spring" -- Egypt, for example -- the lack of haste after the first revolution, for which many people rebuked Moscow, as well as the restraint after the second one, made it possible not to make the mistakes that were made by the United States, for example, which flitted between "sides of history."
The irony lies in the fact that Moscow's Near Eastern success is something like a side effect. Russia is not the Soviet Union and will never again be it. Therefore the panicky arguments in the American press to the effect that, in line with the United States' failures and its departure from the Near East, which has to all intents and purposes begun, Russia will occupy the place that has been vacated are groundless. The Kremlin just does not aspire to this.
The policy that has been implemented in the region since 2011 was dictated by the desire to safeguard ourselves against still larger-scale upheavals which, so Moscow believes, are the consequence of external forces interfering in the affairs of Near Eastern countries, as well as the desire to avoid "complicity" in the Libyan campaign.
Russia's consent to the operation against Al-Qadhafi (more accurately, its reluctance to prevent it) was, by all accounts, a consequence of the fact that President Dmitriy Medvedev believed that in this way Moscow was simply distancing itself from an issue that was not too important to it. It turned out the other way around: Inaction exacerbated the crisis, a precedent was set of quite devastating "humanitarian intervention," and Russia found itself at the center of attention -- primarily hostile attention -- from all sides.
The Near East confirms that the international system is a unified and interconnected organism that obeys definite laws. The heterogeneous and dangerously explosive region was always a target for external forces that acted, inter alia, as regulators. When the United States, which had fulfilled this function after the "Cold War" "sagged," a vacuum arose and needed to be filled. Russia renounced its regulating role with the collapse of the USSR, confining itself to protecting its remaining mercantile interests.
But the logic of international relations is throwing Moscow (since there are no other aspirants) back out, essentially against its will. Consciously or unconsciously, people are expecting Russia to take on the burden of responsibility, naturally for some dividends.
This is a heavy burden and, taking the current processes into consideration, a thankless and pointless one. Moscow is not ready for it, since it realizes that it is one thing to emphasize the Americans' insolvency and quite another thing to achieve the necessary result in the Near East. But, on the other hand, expectations have to be justified, and so the flow of visitors to the Russian capital hoping to enlist the Kremlin's support will not diminish in the very near future.
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