Handing the Middle East to Russia

By Amir Taheri

February 16, 2014 

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, left, Secretary-General of Saudi Arabia's National Security Council, shakes hands with Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2008. Photo: Reuters 

Some 40 years ago, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat ended his regime’s alliance with, and reliance on, the Soviet Union, and, in one of the Cold war’s most dramatic turnabouts, joined the Middle Eastern bloc of nations close to the United States. The switch led to the Camp David peace accords, the defeat of a Soviet-sponsored rebellion in the Arabian Peninsula, the taming of the Communist regime in South Yemen and the containment of the Ba’athist regimes of Syria and Iraq.

Since the modern Middle East emerged from the debris of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the region has needed an outside power to ensure stability by curbing internal and external ambitions, and acting as an honest broker.

Through the 1950s, Britain played that role. Then, until the late 1960s, the region was divided into Soviet and British spheres of influence, with the United States getting a cameo role every now and then. But by 1980, despite the fall of the pro-West regime in Iran, America was the principal guarantor of stability in the region.

Then came President Obama, anxious to move US foreign policy away from what he regards as imperialism. And indeed, after five years of seizing every opportunity to underline his lack of interest in projecting US leadership, Obama seems to have succeeded in persuading many across the region that America’s absence is no longer just a theoretical possibility, but a reality.

That fact — temporarily hidden by Hillary Clinton’s energetic but ultimately unproductive activism — is highlighted by John Kerry’s delusional dance on the margins.

The trouble is that, with the US absence, the Middle East faces a power vacuum that could tear it apart with unforeseeable consequences for regional peace and stability. The search for a new power capable of acting as a balancing force has intensified. Some in the region think Russia could and should assume that role.

On Syria, Obama made it clear that he’s given Russia a permanent veto over US policy. Arab sources tell me that Kerry has advised them not to press on with a new UN resolution seeking greater pressure on Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad so as not to antagonize “our Russian partners.”

Washington’s new stance was reconfirmed with the “nuclear deal” with the mullahs in Tehran. Obama adopted a Russian “fudge formula” rejected by the Bush administration in 2006. Under it, Iran will continue its nuclear program while offering “robust” inspection of select sites.

Suddenly, all roads seem to lead to Moscow.

Last month, even Saudi Arabia, Washington’s close ally since the ’40s, seemed interested in probing closer ties to Russia. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence and security head, flew to Moscow on an unprecedented visit for extensive talks with Vladimir Putin. Arab sources say he evoked the prospect of giving Russia a share of the kingdom’s huge arms imports and joint ventures in oil and gas projects.

Iran instantly reacted by offering Russia “preferential conditions” in developing oilfields in the Caspian sea and the Persian Gulf. President Hassan Rouhani even spoke of a Tehran-Moscow “strategic partnership” to rid “our region from the influence of distant powers,” i.e., the United States. Rouhani has invited Putin to Tehran for the first state visit to the Islamic Republic by a Russian president.

Over the past six months, Moscow has played host to delegations from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq, all worried about Obama’s decision to script the United States out of international leadership. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif even led a delegation to Moscow to seek, believe it or not, a Russian role in “ensuring the future of Afghanistan.” Turkey, although a NATO member, has opened negotiations to purchase Russian arms.

The Syrian pro-democracy groups have also concluded that Russia may be the new “balancing power.” This month, Ahmad Jarba of the Syrian National Coalition led a delegation to Moscow to discuss a deal where “the basic structures” of the Syrian state would remain intact while Russia plays an “oversight role” in a transition period. The upshot is that Russia would impose its policy of maintaining the Assad regime, with a few changes of personnel.

The latest pilgrim is Egypt’s new military dictator, Abdul-Fattah el-Sissi, who last week flew to Moscow, the only foreign capital he has visited since his coup d’état last July, for a photo-op with Putin.

Moscow authorized the publication of a news item according to which Putin wished Sissi “success in your presidential bid.” In exchange, the Egyptians announced that Sissi had discussed buying $2.2 billion in Russian arms — restoring the position Russia lost in the 1970s.