Russia bridges Middle Eastern
divides By M K Bhadrakumar
A multi-billion dollar arms deal with
Iraq, a summit meeting with Turkey, a
fence-mending exercise with Saudi Arabia, a debut
with Egypt's Sphinx-like Muslim Brothers - all
this is slated to happen within the period of a
turbulent month in the Middle East. And all this
is to happen when the United States' "return" to
the region after the hurly-burly of the November
election still seems a distant dream. Simply put,
Russia is suddenly all over the Middle East.
Moscow announced on Tuesday that Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in town and the
two countries signed contracts worth "more than"
US$4.2 billion in an arms deal that includes
Iraq's purchase of 30 Mi-28 attack helicopters and
42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems that
can also be used to defend
against attack jets.
The joint Russian-Iraqi statement issued
in Moscow revealed that discussions had beem going
on for the past five months over the arms deal and
that further talks are under way for Iraq's
purchase of MiG-29 jets, heavy-armored vehicles
and other weaponry. A Kremlin announcement said
Maliki is due to meet President Vladimir Putin on
Wednesday and the focus of the discussions will be
energy cooperation between Russia and Iraq.
The stunning news will send US politicians
into a tizzy. Reports say the phone kept ringing
in Maliki's office in Baghdad as soon as it
transpired that he was to travel to Moscow and
something big could be in the works. Queries were
coming in from the US State Department and the
National Security Council as to what warranted
such a trip at this point in time.
The
point is, Maliki still remains an enigma for
Washington. He is no doubt a friend of the US, but
he is also possibly more than a friend of Iran.
Now, it seems, he is also fond of Russia - as
Saddam Hussein used to be.
Washington and
Ankara have annoyed him repeatedly, taking him for
granted, even writing off his political future, by
consorting with the northern Kurdistan over
lucrative oil deals, ignoring his protests that
Iraq is a sovereign state and Baghdad is its
capital and that the country has a constitution
under which foreign countries should not have
direct dealings with its regions bypassing the
capital and the central government.
Booting out Big Oil They not
only ignored Maliki's protests but also chastised
him for opposing the plan for "regime change" in
Syria and for robustly supporting President Bashar
al-Assad. Lately, they even started needling him
on providing facilities for Iran to send supplies
to the embattled regime in Syria. They then
exceeded all proprieties and gave asylum to an
Iraqi Sunni leader who is a fugitive under Iraqi
law.
They are currently endeavoring to
bring together the disparate Sunni groups in Iraq
in an ominous move that could lead to the
balkanization of Iraq.
Kurdistan is
already a de facto independent region, thanks to
US and Turkish interference. The game plan is to
further weaken Iraq by sponsoring the creation of
a Sunni entity in central Iraq similar to
Kurdistan in the north, thus confining the Iraqi
Shi'ites to a moth-eaten southern region.
The Russia visit shows that Maliki is
signaling he has had enough and won't take this
affront to Iraqi sovereignty anymore. What is
almost certain is that he will propose to Putin on
Wednesday that Russian oil companies should return
to Iraq in full battle cry with investment and
technology and pick up the threads from where they
left at the time of the US invasion in 2003.
Maliki can be expected to boot out Big Oil
and the Turkish companies from Iraq's oil sector.
The implications are profound for the world oil
market since Iraq's fabulous oil reserves match
Saudi Arabia's.
Clearly, Maliki intends to
assert Iraqi sovereignty. Recently, he decided to
terminate the Saddam-era agreement with Turkey,
which allowed a Turkish military presence in
northern Iraq to monitor the PKK separatists'
activities. But Ankara balked, telling off Maliki.
The Russian deal enables him now to rebuild the
Iraqi armed forces and make the Turks think twice
before they violate Iraqi air space or conclude
that their military presence in northern Iraq
could continue unchallenged.
Does this
mean Iraq is on a course of strategic defiance of
the US? What needs to be factored in is that the
US still remains Iraq's number one arms supplier.
Iraq is expecting the delivery of 30 F-16
aircraft. A strategic defiance of the US is far
from Maliki's thoughts - at least, for now.
Maliki's message needs to be taken more as
one of assertively stating that Iraq is an
independent country. Arguably, it is not very
different from the thrust of Egypt's policies
under President Mohammed Morsi. Simply put, the US
needs to come to terms with such happenings as
Maliki's decision to revive the military ties with
Russia or Morsi's decision to pay his first state
visit to China. Conceivably, it could be Egypt's
turn next to revive the ties with Russia. As a
matter of fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov is scheduled to visit Cairo in early
November in the first high-level exchange with
Morsi's leadership.
Indeed, much depends
on the composure with which the US is able to
adapt itself to the new realities in the Middle
East. As things stand, the US has succeeded in
selling $6 billion worth of arms to Iraq. It is
indeed comfortably placed. The US State
Department's initial reaction exuded confidence.
Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the Russian deal
doesn't signify any scaling down of Iraq's
"mil-to-mil" ties with the US, which are "very
broad and very deep".
She revealed that
discussions are going on for "some 467 foreign
military sales cases" with Iraq worth more than
$12 billion "if all of those go forward." Nuland
said, "We're doing some $12.3 billion worth of
military business with Iraq, so I don't think one
needs to be concerned about that relationship
being anything but the strongest."
New,
untried alchemy But the touch of anxiety
in Nuland's words cannot be glossed over, either.
The plain truth is, the "Russians are coming" and
this time they are capitalists and globalists;
they also know the Iraqi market, while the Iraqi
soldier is familiar with the Russian weapon.
During the Saddam era, Iraq was a major buyer of
Russian weaponry and Moscow is estimated to have
lost contracts worth about $8 billion due to the
US-sponsored "regime change" in Baghdad in 2003.
Conceivably, Russia will do its utmost to
claw its way back to the top spot in the Iraqi
market and to make up for lost time. But then,
arms deals invariably have political and strategic
content as well. In the near term, the "unknown
unknown" is going to be whether Maliki might
choose to share the Iraqi capabilities with his
close Iranian and Syrian allies.
Significantly, high-level Syrian and
Iranian delegations have also visited Moscow in
recent months. Eyebrows will be raised that
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is
scheduling a visit to Baghdad shortly. In fact,
even as the Russian-Iraqi arms deal was signed in
Moscow, the commander of the navy of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards arrived on a visit to Iraq,
signifying the close ties between Baghdad and
Tehran. No doubt, Washington will remain on its
toes on this front.
Equally, Russian
experts have written in the past about the
emergence of a new "bloc" in the heart of the
Middle East comprising Iran, Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon with which Moscow can hope to have special
ties.
However, the incipient signs as of
now are that Moscow's regional diplomacy in the
Middle East is shifting gear, determined to bridge
the regional divide that the Syrian crisis has
brought about. Of course, the enterprise seems
awesome in its sheer audacity. But then, Putin is
scheduled to travel to Turkey next week; Lavrov
hopes to travel to Riyadh in early November to
attend the second session of Russia's Strategic
Dialogue with the Gulf Cooperation Council states
(which was once abruptly postponed by the Saudi
regime as a snub to Moscow for its dogged support
for the Assad regime in Syria); Lavrov will also
make a "synchronized visit" to Cairo for meeting
with the new Egyptian leadership and Arab League
officials.
Disclosing Lavrov's scheduled
diplomatic missions, Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Mikhail Bogdanov added, "We [Russia] are
interested in the dialogue and open partnership
discussion with our Arab colleagues from the Gulf,
which, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
others, play a rather active and not one-meaning
role in Syrian affairs. We always favor discussion
of these issues, even disagreements, at the
negotiating table, especially since we have the
Strategic Dialogue mechanism."
Without
doubt, Russian alchemists are experimenting with
new, untried formulations that may help heal the
Syrian wounds. But, as Bogdanov sought to explain,
these formulations are also broad spectrum
medications that will help induce the overall
metabolism of Russia's regional ties with
recaltricant partners who are upset for the
present over Syria. Ideally, Moscow would like to
see that healing process is embedded within an
overall enhancement of mutually beneficial
economic ties.
Russia's ties with Turkey
and Saudi Arabia, for instance, were going strong
during the phase of the pre-crisis period in
Syria. While the ties with Turkey lately have
somewhat stagnated, Russian-Saudi ties have run
into serious difficulty. Evidently, Moscow is keen
to restore the status quo ante. The interesting
part is the Russian diplomacy's assessment that
the present juncture provides a window of
opportunity to make overtures to Ankara and
Riyadh, no matter the incessant blood-letting in
Syria. The backdrop to which this is happening
is significant. In Moscow's assessment, evidently,
there could be hopeful signs for a renewed
approach to seeking a political solution to the
Syrian crisis even though the skies look heavily
overcast. There may be merit in making such a
shrewd assessment.
As things stand, Turkey
and Saudi Arabia are facing an acute predicament
over the Syrian situation. Neither thought that
the Syrian regime would have such a social base
and political will to hang on; both are frustrated
that any "regime change" in Syria is going to be a
long haul fraught with uncertain consequences not
only for the Syrian nation but also for the region
as a whole and even for themselves.
Again,
while there is no let-up in the dogged opposition
to outside intervention in Syria, which Moscow and
Beijing have amply displayed, a UN Security
Council mandate for intervention is to be ruled
out. Without a UN mandate, on the other hand, a
Western intervention is unlikely, and in any case,
the US remains disinterested while the European
attitudes will be guided by their priorities over
their economies, which, according to the latest
Inernational Monetary Fund estimation, are sliding
into a prolonged recession from which a near-term
recovery seems highly improbable.
Sultan with a Nobel In short,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are holding a can of worms
containing the Syrian rebel elements that are not
only disparate but also could prove troublesome in
future. As for Turkey, with or without a UN
mandate, the popular opinion is overwhelmingly
against an intervention in Syria.
The
Turkish people remain far from convinced that
their vital national interests are at stake in
Syria. Besides, the Turkish economy is also
slowing, and a deep recession in Europe can play
havoc with Turkey's economic fortunes. The ruling
AKP's trump card so far has been that it steered
Turkey to a period of unprecedented economic
prosperity.
Increasingly, therefore, all
this proactivism on Syria looks more like the
hare-brained idea of the academic-turned Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davitoglu and Prime Minister Recep
Erdogan than a well-thought out foreign policy
initiative. But even here, Erdogan's political
priorities are going to change as he prepares for
his bid to become the executive president of
Turkey under a new constitution in 2014.
A
Syrian quagmire can threaten his political
ambitions, and already he senses rivalry from the
incumbent President Abdullah Gul, whose popular
ratings are manifestly far better than his own.
In sum, Erdogan wants regime change in
Syria and he is still pushing for it, but he wants
it now. He can't wait indefinitely, since that
will upset his own political calendar. He is
upset, on the other hand, that US President Barack
Obama is not a man in a hurry and the Europeans
are distracted by ailments.
All factors
taken into consideration, therefore, it should
come as no surprise that Putin has made a visit to
Turkey such an urgent priority - although Erdogan
visited Russia hardly two months ago. Putin has
excellent personal equations with Erdogan. They
were instrumental in taking Russian-Turkish
relationship to such qualitatively new level in
recent years.
Putin is a very focused
statesman. He wants to revive the verve of the
Russian-Turkish tango. In the process, the
contract for building a $25 billion nuclear power
plant in Turkey could be advanced to the
implementation stage, and Russia may also secure
contracts to sell weaponry to Turkey.
In
the Russian assessment, Erdogan's underlying
ideology in terms of pursuing an independent
foreign policy needs to be encouraged, despite the
recent deviations such as the decision to deploy
the US missile defence system on Turkish soil.
Putin's expectation will be that within
the framework of a revival of the Russian-Turkish
bonhomie and taking advantage of Erdogan's
travails and dilemma over Syria, a meaningful
conversation between Moscow and Ankara might be
possible leading to a purposive search for a
political solution to the crisis in Syria.
This is the season of Nobel, after all. If
Erdogan could be persuaded that he could be the
first ever sultan - and probably the last, too, in
Ottoman history - to win a Nobel prize for peace,
Putin would have made a huge contribution himself
to world peace.
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.
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