Middle East rift mars US-Russia
'reset' By M K Bhadrakumar
The last thing Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev did before departing for France to attend
this week's Group of Eight summit meeting in
Deauville was place a call to Damascus.
Prima facie, one may think the call made
sense, since as Reuters reported, "Syria's
crackdown on pro-democracy protests" is going to
be high on the agenda of the summit. But Medvedev
had other thoughts on his mind; he wanted to
ostentatiously pick up the thread from his
previous conversation with his Syrian counterpart
Bashar al-Assad on April 6.
According to
the Kremlin statement, Medvedev on that occasion
expressed Moscow's "support for the Syrian
leadership's plans to carry out the internal
reforms announced by Mr Assad in order to
prevent the situation in the
country from deteriorating, prevent human
casualties, and maintain civil peace".
According to reports, the casualty figure
in Syria may since be approaching four digits and
civil peace is in serious disarray. During his
call on Tuesday, however, Medvedev repeated
Moscow's "principled position regarding the events
in Syria and around it" and expressed the "hope
that the reforms launched by Mr Assad will be
implemented by the Syrian leadership dynamically
and in a broad dialogue with the Syrian public".
In response, Assad told Medvedev that he
was "doing and will continue to do everything that
guarantees the peaceful free expression of Syrian
citizens' will. At the same time, the Syrian
leadership does not intend to allow the activities
of radical and fundamentalist groups".
Only last Thursday United President Barack
Obama threateningly handed down an existential
choice to Assad - preside over a peaceful
transition of power in Syria or be ousted from
power. Obama didn't exactly say that Assad's fate
would be the same as Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, but
he likely meant something to that effect.
The point is, Medvedev and Assad have
shown Obama the finger. Yet, Medvedev is scheduled
to have a face-to-face meeting with Obama on the
sidelines of the G-8 gathering on Thursday.
Libyan rebels in Moscow One
could call this tit-for-tat. Medvedev no doubt
suffered a blow to his prestige from his decision
to abstain during the voting on Libya in the
United Nations Security Council, overruling the
advice of highly professional Russian diplomats
that Resolution 1973 was deeply flawed in many
respects and was open to varying interpretations
in the downstream. In retrospect, Medvedev gambled
on behind-the-scene assurances held out by Western
powers, and he lost face.
The Russian
strategic community is aghast that the "coalition
of willing" under the banner of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) has since militarily
intervened in Libya and is about to bring about
regime change. Moscow's protests have been coolly
ignored by Western powers.
To rub salt
into the wound, France has extended invitation
after invitation to Russia to join its contact
group ("Friends of Libya"), despite Moscow
questioning the legitimacy of such an enterprise
that lacks a UN mandate.
Meanwhile, Moscow
faces a fait accompli, having to scramble
to adjust to the new realities of Western powers
forcing a regime change in Tripoli. A
representative of the Libyan opposition was
received by Lavrov in Moscow on Monday. Following
the meeting, Lavrov recognized the Libyan
Transitional National Council (TNC) as a
"legitimate partner".
The Russian position
has consistently been that "all political forces
and tribes" should be involved in any future
talks. Moscow may be estimating that it is better
placed to advocate a peace plan and play a role in
the forthcoming transition of power in Tripoli by
having contacts with both the Libyan government
and the opposition. (Gaddafi's envoys too visited
Moscow last week for talks.)
However, the
TNC has already begun crowing about Moscow
according it "recognition", to which Western
chancelleries must be smirking. TNC spokesman
Abdel Rahman Shalgham told journalists in Moscow
after his meeting with Lavrov: "We [the TNC and
Russia] have a mutual understanding on the issue
of recognizing the transitional government in
Benghazi. The fact that I was received in Moscow
by the Russian foreign minister speaks of the role
and importance of the council."
He has a
point, no doubt. Shalgham also said the opposition
would not hold any talks with Gaddafi.
Russia hails Palestinian unity
Evidently, Moscow kept the visit by the
TNC official low-key, while it also decided to pay
the US back. Even as the TNC man came to the
Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Lavrov scheduled yet
another meeting with Arab visitors - a composite
Palestinian delegation of the leadership of Fatah
and Hamas and five other groups that arrived in
Moscow over the weekend. Unlike the semi-official
session with Shalgham, Lavrov had a structured
meeting with the Palestinian leaders.
Lavrov took the occasion to speak at
length on the recent unity pact between Fatah and
Hamas that was brokered by Egypt and signed in
Cairo this month. He said the agreement had
"historic significance" and Russia welcomed its
content and would be supportive of its
implementation.
Russia has taken a
position on Fatah-Hamas unity that is
diametrically opposed to the views expressed by
Obama. Lavrov said the Cairo pact was "designed to
establish favorable conditions" for resuming
negotiations with Israel and underscored that
Russia "actively contributed to the mediation
efforts of Egypt". Meanwhile, Russian commentators
lost no time in poking fun at Obama's Middle East
speech last Thursday.
A seasoned Moscow
commentator on the Middle East wrote: "Six months
into the Arab Spring, Obama has finally taken the
trouble to spell out his country's policy in the
Arab world, but he hasn't gone anywhere beyond
that. His speech ... was not even close to a
Cairo-2. In 2009, he told students at Cairo
University he was going to shake up the Middle
East, make friends with the Arabs and achieve
peace; but none of that came to pass."
The
sherpas at the G-8 will have a hard time bringing
Russia on board on Libya and Syria. Maybe, on the
Palestinian issue Russia could share some common
ground with European opinion, which also in
principle welcomes Palestinian unity, but it will
be interesting to see if the G-8 could bring
itself to say something positive about the accord
between Fatah and Hamas. Indeed, the US has upheld
Israel's strong objections to the accord.
Medvedev's conversation with Assad on
Tuesday signifies both an assurance of support to
the Syrian leader as well as an early warning to
Western powers at the G-8 that Russia would have a
problem going along with any threatening noises
against Damascus.
Once already - at his
press conference in Moscow on May 17 - Medvedev
has asserted that he would not allow a UN
resolution authorizing sanctions against Syria to
pass "even if my friends are going to beg me to".
What he meant was that he was prepared to be in a
minority of one at Deauville.
These Middle
Eastern discords do not provide a conducive
setting for Obama and Medvedev to have a fruitful
meeting at Deauville. It appears that Moscow has
already estimated that Medvedev's meeting with
Obama is not going to produce any significant
forward movement on the missile defense issue.
Although the Russian president recently
declared that a failure to agree on "a model of
cooperation in anti-missile defense" would result
in "the kind of scenario that would throw us back
into the Cold War era", Washington has nothing new
to offer to Moscow.
The Deauville meeting
will be a turning point. It will reveal whether or
not the US-Russia "reset" policy is still holding.
Clearly, the two sides are no longer able to build
on the "reset". The Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty cannot be followed up and breaking the
deadlock in arms control involving tactical
nuclear weapons is proving difficult because of
disagreements over missile defense.
Arguably, US-Russia cooperation over Iran
and Afghanistan has also touched an optimal level
already and in any case it alone cannot be the
locomotive of the "reset".
Overarching all
this is the growing perception in the US that the
Medvedev era may be drawing to a close by next
year, which acts as a disincentive to build on the
cooperative momentum of the "reset" and instead
simply manage the uncertain partnership.
Anyhow, in immediate terms, Moscow's
stance on the Middle East - Libya and Syria in
particular - underpins the retreat from "reset".
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
