Reviving The Cold War In The Middle East?

By Robert Freedman
Monday, December 03, 2007
DailyStar

Since the US invasion of Iraq, American-Russian relations have been on a downward spiral. From the Russian side this has been caused not only by Iraq but by additional factors as well.

One is the expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia along with the possibility that both Georgia and Ukraine might join that Western defense organization. Another is the US effort to install an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in Eastern Europe that Moscow considers both unnecessary and provocative. Russia is also unhappy with American efforts to bypass it with oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea, along with a US attempt to spark a "colored revolution" in Russia on the model of what happened in Georgia and Ukraine.

From the American perspective, relations have deteriorated for a number of reasons, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on the media, including the murder of prominent journalists, the increasing centralization of power in Putin's hands and the jailing of free-market entrepreneurs such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In addition, relations have been negatively affected by the freezing of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, Moscow's heavy handed pressure tactics against the Baltic states, Ukraine and Georgia, and its obstructionist policy in Kosovo; and, above all, by Russian military and nuclear aid to Iran, America's number one enemy - a policy that is part and parcel of the current Russian political offensive in the Middle East.

Focusing on the Middle East, it is quite possible to argue that Russian activities in the region since 2005 have been a significant cause of US-Russian tensions. Beginning in 2005, Russia has made a major effort to increase its influence in the region. This is in part a counterweight to NATO's expansion eastward and in part a response to Russian reverses in Georgia and Ukraine. Russia has also signed major arms agreements with Syria and Iran - agreements greatly exacerbating tensions in the region.

In the case of Syria, the arms, some of which were transferred to Hizbullah, have contributed to heightening Syrian-Israeli tensions as well as aiding Hizbullah in its war against Israel in the summer of 2006. In the case of Iran, Moscow's decision to send sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Tehran in November 2005, even as Iran was defying the Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear enrichment program, was a blow not only to US-Russian relations, but also to the cause of non-proliferation, insofar as the missiles will be used to protect Iran's nuclear installations. This will encourage it to continue its nuclear enrichment activities in the face of Western criticism.

While in the past year Moscow has agreed to minimal UN Security Council sanctions against Iran and has delayed shipment of nuclear fuel for the Bushehr reactor it is building for Iran, these limited steps seem more an effort to curry favor with the Gulf Arabs, whom Putin has been courting, than any real cooperative effort with the United States.

Yet from the US (and Israeli) perspective, things could get worse. If US-Russian relations deteriorate further, Russia may decide that having a solid ally in Iran is more important than improving ties with the Gulf Arabs - a measure Putin has sought both to help the Russian economy and to deter the Arabs from aiding the Chechen rebels. This could well happen, especially if oil prices remain in the $90-100 per barrel range and the Chechen rebellion remains under control. Under these circumstances, Russia will even more strongly oppose further UN sanctions against Iran and will ship it the nuclear fuel it has withheld, thus providing Tehran with another means of nuclear enrichment. One could also expect deliveries of ever more sophisticated Russian weapons to Iran to counter a possible US or Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear installations.

There is an even more negative scenario with regard to Syria. Given Damascus' humiliation caused by the easy penetration of Syrian airspace by the Israeli Air Force in early September 2007 and the ineffectiveness of Russian radar in detecting the Israeli planes, one could imagine Syrian President Bashar Assad, not unlike Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser in 1970 when Israeli planes roamed at will over Egypt, asking for Russian air defense forces and pilots to protect Syrian airspace and giving Moscow airfields and ports in return. Needless to say, such a Russian action would be a major blow to both Russian-American and Russian-Israeli relations.
Whether either of these negative scenarios comes to pass remains to be seen. But they could well be a consequence of a continued deterioration in Russian-American relations.

Robert O. Freedman is Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University and is a visiting professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Russia and the Middle East under Yeltsin and Putin." This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.