Russia's Middle East policies (Russlands Nahostpolitik)

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  Introduction  1

  Analysis  2

1.  The Yelzin Era  2

1.1  The Kozyrev Years  2

1.2  The Primakov Years  3

2.  The Putin Era  6

3.  Russia s relations to Iran  7

4.  Russia s relations to Iraq  8

5.  Russia s relations to Israel  9

6.  Russia s relation to Turkey  11

7.  Russia s relations to other Middle Eastern states  12

  Conclusions  13

  Bibliography  14

  Introduction  

  This Essay is supposed to analyse the Russian Federation s foreign policies towards the  

  Middle East The first part of the essay has to be understood as a general historical survey  

  over these policies This survey will start with the Yeltsin government and a comparison of  its

  two Foreign Ministers policies namely Andrei Kozyrev and Yevgeny Primakov Afterwards  

  more current developments under the Putin government will be discussed  

  Subsequently Russia s specific relations towards the different states of the Middle East  

  whether the y are based on military involvement economic interests or on geopolitics will be  

  examined whereby this paper will focus on Iran Iraq Israel and Turkey The relations  

  towards the other Middle Eastern states will be described more briefly  

  A general aim of this essay is to show up a major shift from former Soviet to present Russian  

  Middle Eastern policies As for Russia Transcaucasia and Central Asia are in nowadays the  

  most important geopolitical regions in the world only those Middle Eastern states that have  

  borders and influence in these regions (like Iran and Turkey) are regarded as being of crucial  

  importance for Russia This of course does not mean that for example the Gulf States have  

  suddenly become uninteresting but they play a smaller role in foreign policies  

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In Soviet times, the core-region of the Middle East, meaning Israel and its neighbouring Arab countries, had been seen as a very important field to wage the ideological war against the USA (the USSR did this in form of supporting the Arabian states). In present times Russia is accepting the U.S. leadership in this region and only exercising “rhetorical politics”. Nevertheless, Russia’s relations towards Israel are multifaceted and very contradictorily and its Arab neighbours are of a certain economic significance, mainly because of arms sales. Another interesting aspect of this essay are the Russian-U.S.-relations that are touched in nearly all aspects of Russia’s Middle Eastern policies. This can either take place in form of cooperation (e.g. the Arab-Israeli-peace process) or in form of conflict (e.g. the relations to Iran and Iraq).

In this context one thing has always to be kept in mind: Russian foreign policies are always formulated in a very normative way (this doesn’t rule out the possibility of also acting pragmatic) and tend not to be very much implemented in reality. Russia may have now, after nearly a whole decade, accepted that is not a superpower anymore, but it still feels to have the entitlement of, if not a great, at least a power of special importance, with large influence spheres dominated by itself. Some Middle Eastern states are regarded as being an important helping-tool in this context.

Analysis

1. The Yelzin Era

1.1 The Kozyrev Years

Andrei Kozyrev’s first stage of Middle Eastern policies can in general be described as having been nearly completely pro American. In the 1991 Gulf War the collapsing Soviet Union was not part of the international alliance against Saddam Hussein and tried to pursue at least an own way of politics towards the Iraqi regime. But already in 1992 Russia, the USSR successor state, was taking part in enforcing sanctions against Baghdad. Furthermore, Russia was also backing up sanctions against Libya and encouraging the Arab-Israeli peace process. The only case in which Russia’s policies really differed from American standpoints was the delivery of arms to Iran. 1 1 See Robert O. Freedman, “Russian Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Kozyrev Legacy”, Caspian Crossroads Magazine, Volume1, Issue No.4, Winter 1996, p.1.

( http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/usazerb/144.htm ), 1/24/2002.

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In the following years Russian President Boris Yelzin was moving further and further to the right of the political spectrum. This happened mainly because of the growing pressure and influence from two factions inside the Russian parliament: The centrist “Eurasianists”, and communist as well as nationalist hard- liners from the right. Both groups wanted better relations with Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and thought of Middle Eastern policies that would be completely different from the American ones. 2 A new dimension of Russia’s Middle Eastern policies was reached through the sale of nuclear reactors to Iran that has been going on since 1994 and provoked strong American criticism. Besides Russia was then trying to suspend the sanctions against Iraq and condemning the time-to-time American air-strikes against this country.

“All in all, since 1992 Russia has been [...] seeking to establish a major position of influence in Iraq and Iran, two countries with which the US is in serious conflict. Only in the case of Arab-Israeli conflict is Russia maintaining a cooperative relationship with the US, [...]” 3

Kozyrev had a lot of problems in coordinating Russia’s Foreign Policies. Rival groups in the Russian government, such as the Ministry of Atomic Energy (MINATOM) and the Defence Ministry were trying to pursue their own interests in the field of international relations without consulting the Foreign Ministry. Yelzin’s decision to replace Kozyrev through the experienced bureaucrat and Intelligence Service-man Yevgeny Primakov in early 1996 can be understood as his endeavour for a better coordinated Russian foreign policy. 4 Furthermore, during his time in office Kozyrev did not have a concrete strategic or political vision at all. He never really gave up his ideal of making case-by-case-policies and he was not a designated expert in Middle Eastern policies. 5

1.2 The Primakov Years

Quite contrary to Kozyrev, Primakov was an expert in the Middle East. English and Arabic speaking, having already worked in this field for the Brezhnev government, and being a personal friend of Saddam Hussein, Hafez al- Assad, Muammar Qaddafi and Yasser Arafat 2 Ibid., p.2 3 Ibid., p.3 4 See Freedman, “The Kozyrev Legacy”, pp.3-4.

5 This section refers to Prof. Pohl`s course “Russian Foreign, Security and Defence Policy“, lecture 6.

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made him unique in this realm. 6 In this context it may certainly be questioned if his Middle Eastern policies where totally unprejudiced.

The appointment of Primakov as Russia’s new Foreign Minister can be seen as an effort by Yelzin to react to the new situatio n in the State Duma, the Russian parliament: The elections of December 1995 brought an acute turn to the right and Primakov was very popular in the Duma, especially because of his well-known anti-American attitude, and he can in fact be regarded as having been Yeltsin’s ambassador to parliament. 7

It should be mentioned here that the time Primakov became Foreign Minister, the Russian state in general, mainly because of problems concerning domestic policies, was in a very difficult situation:

“Finally, when he took office, Primakov had to face the fact that Russia, which was losing its war in Chechnya, was a very weak state and he was conducting foreign policy from a very weak base.” 8

Furthermore, Russia’s new Foreign Minister was also facing the biggest problem of his predecessor in office: The plurality of quasi- independent actors in Russia’s foreign policies, such as energy companies (Lukoil and Gazprom), the competing factions in the State Duma, oligarchs (e.g. Berezovsky and Potanin), the arms sales age ncy Rosvooruzheniye, the Defence Ministry, the Ministry of Atomic Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations. This situation had been forcing Primakov to search for consensus between these different groups, but it showed only work out in the cases of policies towards Iran and Iraq and not for example in those of Turkey and Israel. 9 To summarise Primakov’s foreign policies, one has to state that he had been continuing a lot of Kozyrev’s initiatives, especially policies towards Iraq and Iran, and that he also failed to fully overcome the problem of plurality in Russia’s foreign policies decision-making. The big difference to Kozyrev was his anti-American approach towards the Middle East, that included in general the attempt to increase Russia’s influence in the region, and in particular the 6 See Ariel Cohen, “The “Primakov Doctrine“: Russia`s Zero-Sum Game with the United States“, The Heritage Foundation, No.167, December 1997, p.2.

( http://www.heritage.org/library/archives/fyi/fyi_167.pdf ), 02/16 /2002.

7 See Robert O. Freedman, “Russia and the Middle East: The Primakov Era”, Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal Vol.2, No.2 (May 1998), p.1.

( http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1998/issue2/freedman.pdf ), 02/15 /2002.

8 Ibid., p.2.

9 See Freedman, “The Primakov Era“, p.2.