Yevgeny Satanovsky: “The Iranians are probably right”

Interview by Daria Melikhova, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon confirmed that he had received a letter from the Syrian authorities, which wanted to join the international convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. He welcomed Damascus’s intention. The president of the Institute of the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovsky, told Vestnik Kavkaza about possible developments over Syria.

-          How will resolution of the Syrian crisis develop, and how will Washington build its relations with Russia and the states of the South Caucasus in this context?

-          Relations between Russia and the U.S. or relations between America and the post-Soviet space from the Baltic states to Central Asia through the Caucasus have nothing in common with the Syrian problem. There is American policy toward the former Soviet Union – Russia and Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, Kazakhstan. The policy is separate. And nothing can be done with this. We cannot influence this. We can build some dialogue with this or that post-Soviet capital (Yerevan, Tbilisi, Baku), realizing that we have no financial, military or political resources to buy off somebody from America. There was a time when we bought off many people in Africa, Asia and even Latin America, that we bankrupted and destroyed the Soviet Union. What is the point in a senseless chase for useful compliments from the authorities of this or that country?

The Syrian situation showed that the Russian and the American leaderships can talk to each other at least. Even though there is no particular love between the Russian and American presidents, some reasonable things, from the American point of view, were accepted. This is good. Unfortunately, the deepest degradation of the political elite, the expert society of the United States, leads to such decisions as the support of radical Islamists all over the Middle East from Afghanistan to Libya. It has resulted in America’s complete failure everywhere and the danger of the improvement of radical Islamism. Let’s remember the 11th of September last year. But for Russia, American failure is not good either, because people who bomb the U.S. and attack American diplomats today are not Russia's friends.

-          What can we expect from the situation in Syria? Will predictions of a big war in the East come true?

-          Of course there will be a big war in the Middle East. For sure! A big war between the Sunnis and Shiahs, a big battle between the faithful of the Sunni world; and the Wahabi tandem – Qatar and Saudi Arabia – and the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan personally will play a big role here. Erdogan is very active in promotion of his Islamic project, a new Ottoman Empire and he as a new sultan. What can we do about it? This is the reality. We should be prepared for his, should try to minimize the consequences of the mess on Russian territory, but it cannot be stopped. You cannot stop a tsunami or dawn or a sunset. These are natural historical processes.

-          As for chemical weapons, Iran seems to have evidence that it was the opposition that used chemical weapons in Syria…

-          The opposition has many times stated about the chemical weapon of Assad, and it always failed, trying to organize provocations to involve the West into an intervention against Assad. The Iranians are probably right. Moreover, along with the Iranians there is evidence from neutral sources, including people who were imprisoned by the opposition, they were Western journalists and professionals who used to support the opposition, but then stopped doing it. Unfortunately, it seems militant groups fighting against Assad do have chemical weapons today.