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Caucasus war & Russia’s Middle East policy

Everyone, above all the West, is criticising Russia for recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on August 26. The United States has said Russia pushed itself into international isolation and is criticising its domestic and foreign policies.

Meanwhile, Russia has ordered training flights of its strategic bombers over the Caribbean and sent its warships to participate in joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy. Since both events happened in the region of the U.S.’ influence, the media are predicting a new Cold War that will affect all the regions where the two countries have interests, including the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, the leaders of France, Syria, Turkey and Qatar, who met in Damascus in early September to discuss peace between Israel and Palestine, Iran’s nuclear programme and the situation in Lebanon and Iraq, also touched upon the Caucasus war. Syrian President Bashar Assad said the countries in the Middle East are not interested in a new Cold War, and do not want the region turned into the arena of confrontation it was in the middle of the 20th century. “Flames from one part of the world spread to other regions, and the fire becomes twice as strong,” Mr. Assad said.

Several weeks before that, he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, where he compared the recent war in the Caucasus to the situation in the Middle East. “These problems are very much alike, especially since the two regions are of strategic importance for the world order,” Mr. Assad said.

The Caucasus war and the conflict in the Greater Middle East are parts of a global geopolitical game. The similarity between them that the Syrian President pointed to clearly concerns Washington’s interference and the struggle for control over the two regions’ rich energy resources. The Middle Eastern countries do not want to become the arena of Russian-American confrontation again, even though many in the region would like to see the revival of the bipolar world order. It was from this context that they saw Russia’s actions in the Caucasus.

Unlike the West, many Arab and Islamic leaders and nations have expressed their support for Moscow, but not because they love Russia, though some of them do. The war in the Caucasus reminded them of the Cold War era, when the Soviet Union stood up against the “hateful” U.S. and Israel and the “global Zionist conspiracy.”

They have good reasons for making this comparison. Israeli supplies of weapons to Tbilisi and assistance to the Georgian army during the conflict in South Ossetia infuriated many. But close ties between Georgia and Israel are logical, because there are more than 1,00,000 Georgian Jews in Israel. The grandmother of Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister of Israel, is buried in Tbilisi, while two Georgian Ministers, David Kezerashvili (Defence) and Timur Yakobashvili (Reintegration), once lived in Israel.

The latter fact explains the active military technical cooperation between the two countries and the presence of Israeli military advisers, including Brigadier General (Reserves) Gal Hirsch, who commanded the Galilee Division during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, in Georgia.

Israel usually exports arms only if the price is good and almost never does it for political considerations. But this time, its logical partnership with Georgia has played a bad joke on it and affected the Middle East settlement process. “Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia and they too lost because of him,” Hizbollah’s secretary-general, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has reportedly said. The media alleged that Russia would now supply the Iskander missile system to Syria and strengthen military technical cooperation with it, tipping the balance in the Middle East against Israel.

Mr. Assad went to Moscow almost immediately after the end of the Caucasus war, provoking fresh rumours about the alleged Russian arms supplies to the region and the growing confrontation with the U.S. there, and expected rapprochement with Arab countries, primarily Syria and the Hamas and Hizbollah movements, as well as with Iran.

Russian analysts say this is a possible scenario. Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of Middle East Studies, said accumulation of Israeli weapons in Georgia could encourage an “increase in the number of Russian-made arms in Syria.” “We have always monitored the balance and relations between our partners,” he said, adding Russia should take and is taking such steps to suit its national interests, not to spite Europe or the U.S.

Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said Russia might step up the delivery of S-300 air defence missile systems to Iran if the U.S. accelerated the integration of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. “When the issue of arms supplies to Iran comes to the fore, western countries act like hysterical girls. Russia can use this to its advantage, saying that it would sell weapons to Iran if Georgia and Ukraine were included in NATO. There are also Syria and Venezuela,” Mr. Pukhov said. Commenting on the media reports that the missile systems have so far not been delivered to Iran, he said: “This may be so. The contract was probably kept on ice as long as there was a possibility of an agreement between Russia and the West. But now Russia may accelerate S-300 deliveries to Iran.”

The Israeli media are in an uproar over the war in the Caucasus and the likelihood of increased Russian arms deliveries to the Middle East. In one of its September articles, the newspaper Yedioth Ahranoth says, citing Colonel Ram Dor, chief of information security in the Israel Defence Forces (Tzahal), that Russia passes the intelligence it gathers about Israel to Syria and indirectly to Hizbollah in neighbouring Lebanon. According to the article, many Tzahal officers explain Israel’s defeat in the 2006 war with Lebanon by Hizbollah’s access to Russian intelligence and arms. It also says the information about Russian spy ships docked in Syria and Russian personnel serving at electronic eavesdropping stations on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights came at a touchy time in relations with Moscow, given Russian arms talks with Syria and the involvement of a Russian state-owned company in building the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran on its Gulf coast.

Russia has, in turn, complained about Israeli arms and training for Georgia, the newspaper says. In other words, Yedioth Ahranoth alleges that the construction of the Bushehr plant and talks with Syria are Russia’s revenge for Israeli arms deliveries to Georgia, as well as fresh proof of Russia’s traditionally negative attitude to Israel.

Other Israeli media threaten Russia with renewal of arms deliveries to Georgia if it does not keep clear of the Middle East. But nobody writes that Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, has more than once said it would not play at bloc policy in the Middle East or be forced to choose between Israel and Arab countries. As for the Bushehr nuclear power plant and military technical cooperation with Syria, Russia has been working with these projects for years and the Israeli authorities know this very well, including directly from Russia’s top officials.

Moreover, during Russia’s conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia, the Israeli Foreign Ministry strongly recommended suspending arms deliveries to Georgia. In a similar situation a year ago, Israel suspended the delivery of a large batch of weapons to Georgia upon Russia’s insistent request. In the past, Russia refused to sell the Iskander missile system to Syria in order to maintain good relations with Israel.

Taken together, this means the current Russian moves are not designed as revenge. Israel’s arms supplies to Georgia have not destroyed Russian-Israeli relations, and Moscow’s relations with Syria and Iran have not damaged them either. Evidence of that is the visit by Foreign Ministry Director-General Aaron Abramovich to Moscow in early September and the enforcement of the agreement on a visa free regime between Israel and Russia on September 20.

In fact, Russia has better relations with Israel than with any other Middle Eastern country, though this does not allow the Kremlin to influence Israel’s stand on Middle East settlement. Tel Aviv prevented Moscow from hosting a Middle East peace conference, which has since been overshadowed by the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the formation of a new government, and the upcoming parliamentary elections.

However, both Russia and the U.S. will stand to lose in this case. The U.S. promised that Israelis and Palestinians would shake hands on a peace treaty by the end of President George Bush’s term. But it has not ensured this, though Washington was believed to have the strongest influence on Israel. Much will now depend on the new White House boss and his strategy in the Middle East and other regions and policy regarding Russia. Though it criticised Russia’s actions in the Caucasus, the Bush administration has not stopped cooperation with it on acute international problems, primarily the Iranian one.

The war in the Caucasus has not changed the situation or Russian policy in the region. Moscow will not make friends or enemies to spite Washington, but will continue to act in accordance with its interests and possibilities. The main thing Russia has learned in the past few years is that it must not miss the chances offered by political opponents and allies. The war in the Caucasus has highlighted this truth better than any other event.- — RIA Novosti

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