Could Russia Broker Middle East Peace? - Paul J. Saunders - http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/13/could-russia-broker-middle-east-peace
The hope that Russia could succeed where the United States has failed in brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace often surfaces as frustration with Washington's management of the peace process grows. In 2014, Russian officials and observers complained that the Barack Obama administration pushed Moscow aside and then failed to accomplish anything. This is largely true. But could Moscow do better? Almost surely not.
The desire for Russia to take center stage derives from widespread perceptions that the United States is too partial to Israel and that Moscow would be more balanced. But being a successful mediator requires more than a collection of diplomatic positions.
The most immediate problem is whether there is in fact any basis for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, regardless of who tries to help. At this point, there is no clear basis for optimism. Still, the prospect of a full and final peace in the Middle East has long attracted a considerable number of professional optimists, apparently including Secretary of State John Kerry, who hopes that Israel's March 17 elections might produce new opportunities for a deal. Nevertheless, even if one assumes that peace is within reach with the right constellation of external actors and pressures, Russia lacks both the capabilities and the will to serve as the principal mediator.
Moscow does indeed have a good relationship with Israel and has acted on that basis, including in its decision to withhold delivery of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran. Moreover, Moscow has generally been able to compartmentalize its differences with Israel over the peace process while developing stronger bilateral ties. At the same time, Russia has a good relationship with the Palestinian Authority (PA), and PA President Mahmoud Abbas wants Moscow to play a bigger role in the peace process. (Russia, in turn, wants the Arab League more involved.)
Whether or not Russia's approach would be more "balanced" than that of the United States, Russia fundamentally lacks the capability to play a leading role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Moving beyond narrow issues like the exact location of borders and the fate of particular settlements, a successful and enduring two-state deal requires two things: security for Israel and financial support for the PA. For Russia to be a lead mediator, Moscow would have to be credible in providing or arranging both of these.
This leads to some very pointed questions. Is Russia prepared to guarantee Israel's security and survival? If Moscow made those guarantees, would Israel find them sufficiently credible? Could Moscow successfully press Israel to make difficult choices? Would Washington encourage Israel to do whatever would be necessary to finalize a Moscow-led deal? Could Russia orchestrate long-term development assistance and budget support for the PA - even before oil prices plunged to produce Russia's current financial crisis, not to mention since then? Would Moscow get tough with the PA after a settlement to crack down on violence by anti-peace groups?
Taking the financial questions first, Russia's contributions to the PA so far have been quite modest - just $2 million in humanitarian assistance in 2012, compared to over $50 million from the United States and $176 million from the European Union that year. Despite wanting a bigger role in the Quartet, Russia does not actually provide any financial support to its Jerusalem-based representative office led by Tony Blair.
One might argue that Russia could persuade wealthy Arab governments to finance the PA if Russia succeeded in bringing them more fully into the peace process. While this is theoretically possible, their past conduct provides little basis for optimism. Moreover, once the Palestinian-Israeli dispute is resolved, the Palestinians and their terrible hardships will cease being a political cause around which Arab governments can mobilize their publics and will likely instead become one more competing request.
Russia's ability and willingness to provide meaningful and credible security guarantees to Israel is even more limited than its ability to pay the PA's bills. President Vladimir Putin has used force along Russia's borders when important Russian interests were at stake, but has not done so elsewhere. Indeed, outside the former Soviet Union, Moscow's most aggressive military move since 1992 may arguably have been President Boris Yeltsin's decision to send 200 paratroopers to capture Kosovo's Pristina airport in 1999 - a short-lived act of bravado that would hardly reassure anyone counting on Moscow's military help. Today's Russian military is not designed to send significant forces anywhere outside its immediate neighborhood.
No less important, a real Russian commitment to defend Israel - or even to arm Israel without sending troops - could be problematic in Russia's relations with Arab governments. The United States can manage this contradiction because it simultaneously provides security guarantees to many others in the Middle East and because as the world's predominant military power and largest economy, it is a desirable partner even when some of its actions and commitments are unwelcome. At the same time, from Israel's perspective, Moscow's constant insistence on discussing everything in the United Nations before doing anything might also be a significant drawback. While many like to complain about US unilateralism, it can be reassuring to allies and friends.
Ultimately, however, Moscow won't offer security guarantees not only because of the reactions it might produce elsewhere, but also because the issue of Israeli-Palestinian peace is not central to Russian foreign policy. Russia generally favors peace and stability in the Middle East over the alternatives, but has many higher priorities. This is most readily demonstrated by reading some of the guiding documents of Russian foreign policy, Russia's Foreign Policy Concept and Putin's decree "On Measures to Implement the Russian Federation Foreign Policy" - released shortly after he returned to the Kremlin in 2012. While it would be a mistake to take either document too literally, it is telling that Putin's executive order does not mention the conflict at all. The longer and more bureaucratic Foreign Policy Concept declares Russia's aim to work with others toward a "long-term settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict in all its aspects" in paragraph 88. Russia's actual behavior reflects the modest place that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute occupies within its hierarchy of foreign policy objectives.
Of course, that Russia is likely not able to lead the peace process does not mean that Russia has no role in it or that Moscow cannot make valuable contributions. On the contrary, the fact that one of the parties to the dispute clearly wants Russia to have a more significant part in the process (as do some if not many Arab governments) makes Russia's involvement and acquiescence important in finding a lasting solution. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the shortcomings in US efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, there is a big difference between contributing and leading. And it is a difference that senior Russian officials themselves likely recognize well.
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