Russia wants to 'Redesign' the Middle East - By Gedalyah Reback - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/194358#.VTfA9pt0x9B
Russia thinks American policy in the Middle East has been irresponsible, but is pursuing a strategy where Iranian power would dominate.
Under the radar last week, Vladimir Putin met with Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow. The meeting was not considered remarkable as Abbas has started to visit the Kremlin on an annual basis. The timing, though, corresponded with Putin's definitely remarkable announcement Russia would reinitiate its sale of S-300 missiles to Iran. According to Sarah Fainberg of the Institute for National Security Studies, it is hard to ignore the correlation.
"The official announcement that Putin was lifting the ban happened a few hours after Russia received Abbas in Moscow. It might be just a coincidence. But at this level of decision-making, coincidences are rare. It is sending a message about Russia's intentions in the Middle East."
Russia's goals in the region have been opaque for analysts, even more so for people unfamiliar with Russian politics. Spokesman for the White House Josh Earnest belittled the Russians by suggesting the missile sale was all about badly needed currency.
But Fainberg says that that is hardly the entire picture. The money Russia would make from the deal is extremely limited and cannot hope to make a massive impact on a Russian economy in its sixth year of recession.
"Basically we often quote economic reasons and these are valid, real reasons. But the ultimate and decisive reason is of a geopolitical nature meaning Russia wants to ultimately redesign the Middle East to its best interests and this explains the intensification of its activities in the past weeks whether in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen or Iran. For Russia it is also about containing the spread of Sunni fundamentalism through its Southern borders. The number of Chechen fighters in Iraq and Syria has been on the rise."
Abbas is an interesting point in the Russian approach to the region. While Russia is clearly closer to Iran and Syria than the Turks or Saudis, they are doing more outreach to the Palestinian Authority than Hamas, the latter being more closely aligned to Iran. That is indicative of a Russian effort to have influence in every place that it can, even to the point where it sometimes has to make choices that will inversely upset one country while benefiting another.
How would Putin "redesign" the strategic layout of the region? By running Russian interests through what it perceives as the potentially most powerful country in the Middle East: Iran.
"What Russia is suggesting is that it wants to redesign the Middle East around a single superpower, which is Iran and through this settle a number of crises: Yemen, Syria and Iraq; paradoxically also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Foreign Minister] Lavrov last week made a clear, although for us paradoxical, linkage between Iran and the Palestinian issue."
"Their attitude is along the lines of 'Having Iran as a strong power will have a stabilizing effect on the entire Middle East and ultimately on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.'"
"They want to be a key player and the way to do it is to remain Iran's first and exclusive ally. Strengthening Iran and approaching the Palestinians is part of this same vision, the same package. They are using this to be a moderator or mediator of those conflicts thereby enhancing their leverage across the region and with the West."
Will Russia Moderate Iran's Position?
This begs the question then; might Russia want Iran to moderate its position toward Israel? The suggestion has come up the US hopes this deal is the beginning of an opening up for Iran. Might Russia be hoping for the same?
"Russia doesn't want Iran to become nuclear. This is the whole paradox. At the practical level, Russia is a major exporter of nuclear power plants in the area. Russia constantly condemns the spread of WMD in the Middle East (referring to Israel's nuclear power) while selling weapons throughout the region."
"I don't think Russia sees Iran as a stabilizer for Israel though, that's for sure. But I think they have a very compartmentalized look at this. They want to keep Iran as a partner, but they also do not want Iran to become a nuclear threat to its neighbors while also not hurting its relationship with Israel."
Despite this, Russia still respects the strength Israel has and its ability to act.
"They know that Israel is a military superpower and are wary of what Israel's potential is to respond to threats. Russia also has a better understanding of the nuances in the area than the Americans do, since the late Soviet period they have a very sophisticated school of Middle East experts."
Russia still values the relationship it has built for itself with Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union. As it is, Russia's views of the Middle East might not be getting out to Israelis, though they might be little consolation in view of weapons sales to Iran or Syria.
"For Russia, there are four main regional powers in the area: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel. They have good relations with all four. It's paradoxical to see the level of bilateral trade between Russia and Israel was double the size of Russian-Iranian trade."
"Another reason they act that way is because they believe Israel's ally the US is a completely irresponsible actor in the area. They strive to contain and stop the explosion of violence by non-state actors which according to Russia developed because of US' irresponsible alliance-making in the region."
"Yet we still don't have complete clarity of Russia's decisions."
Putin warns Israel: Selling arms to Ukraine would provoke Russian S-300 sales to Syria too - http://www.debka.com/article/24542/Putin-warns-Israel-Selling-arms-to-Ukraine-would-provoke-Russian-S-300-sales-to-Syria-too
Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning to Israel against selling arms to Kiev - in retaliation for the S-300 air-defense missiles Russia has released for Iran - adds a European dimension to the dispute by planting Israel squarely in the middle of Moscow's Ukraine dispute with the United States. The Russian leader's implied threat to hit back by sending the same missile system to Syria as well as Iran, touches on another dispute between Russia on the one side and the US and Israel on the other, namely the Syria conflict.
Whereas critics of the Netanyahu government highlight its falling-out with the Obama administration over the Iranian nuclear issue, they disregard the intense US-Israeli military cooperation in two vital regions of conflict - Syria and Ukraine.
This working relationship is not lost on Putin.
The intelligence updates placed on his Kremlin desk reveal that, just as the US and Israel (and Jordan) have been arming rebel forces fighting in southern Syria, they are also working together to give the Ukrainian army the weapons for breaking its incendiary standoff with the pro-Russian separatists.
In the last fortnight, thousands of military advisers from the United States, Canada, France, the UK and Germany were shipped into Ukraine to train the national army. Due in the coming days are 290 officers and troops of the American 173 Airborne Brigade.
debkafile's military sources disclose that the arrivals are gathering at the Ukrainian Army's training center in Yavoriv, near Lvov, chosen as assembly point and launching pad for Western and NATO intervention forces in the Ukraine conflict because of its proximity to Poland.
The US and British air squadrons stationed there for some months are close enough to give the Yavoriv center air cover. Also at hand as reinforcements for the Ukrainian military effort are the US and British military personnel, who were posted to Poland after Russia's annexation of Crimea last March, to allay the fears of the Baltic states.
Putin has repeatedly cautioned Washington that arming Kiev with US offensive weapons would bring forth matching Russian steps that would hurt US interests in Europe and other parts of the world.
He tried sending this warning through German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, as well as addressing it to Secretary of State John Kerry at his meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Moscow, said the warning message, would not spare US interests after what Putin sees as the Obama administration's assaults on Russia's national security, by means of NATO's creeping absorption of Ukraine and offensive arms if provided by the US for Kiev's campaign against pro-Russian separatists.
Lifting the embargo on S-300 air defense missiles for Iran was the Russian leader's first step toward making good on his warning, but his reprisals are not likely to stop there.
The anti-air missiles have not yet been shipped to Iran, but if President Barack Obama forges ahead with expanded military assistance to the Ukraine government, Putin intends sending S-300s not just to Iran,but to Syria as well.
Saturday, April 18, the Russian president declined to say in answer to a question whether Moscow had refrained from sending S-300 missiles to Syria at Israel's request. But he tellingly mentioned Syria in the same breath as his warning to Israel not to supply weapons to the Ukrainian government, saying that the move would be "counterproductive" to efforts to reach peace in east Ukraine.
In Washington earlier on Friday, Obama said he was surprised that Russia's suspension of missile sales to Iran had "held this long." The US president noted that Putin had previously suspended the sale "at our request. I am frankly surprised that it held this long, given that they were not prohibited by sanctions from selling these defensive weapons."
The US president has chosen Ukraine as his arena for a showdown with the Russian president. Putin however, prefers to mount his challenge in Iran and Syria.
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