By Vestnik Kavkaza
The situation in the restless Middle East became even tenser after the August attack by terrorists of the Islamic State. Thousands of Shi'as, Christiansand Yezidis were killed by the terrorists. The Iraqi government called on the international community to help in resisting the Islamic State, but the West is trying to blame Syria for everything again. The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated that the reason for the appearance of the Islamic State was Bashar Assad’s policy. This position wasn’t a surprise for the Russian Foreign Ministry. Sergey Lavrov has already warned that the West could attack Syria under cover of fighting the extremist group.
At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry admits that the sources of the problems which are connected with the expansion of the terrorists lie in Syria. The terrorists came from the country, they received military experience there. However, the favorable conditions for the appearance of the Islamic State in Syria were created not by Assad, but the internal armed conflict which has been continuing for 4 years, and the inability of the international community to find acceptable options for its settlement.
Alexander Kuznetsov, the head of the Center for Forecasting and Regulating Conflicts, thinks that “the logic of the development of the world leads to the appearance of new political supranational structures. In Europe – the EU; the Latin American countries are united in an common economic space, and someday it will become a political or geopolitical space. This is natural, as it is necessary under globalization of the 21st century. Small national states won’t survive, they won’t be competitive. However, in the Middle East the opposite process is going on – maximum crushing, establishing enclave states which won’t be effective.”
According to Kuznetsov, “if a Sunni state was established in Iraq, which had no access to the sea, no oil fields, it would depend on foreign sources, it would turn into a toy of superpowers and non-regional players. It is being done to control the region and prevent establishing an all-Arab political union. Of course, such projects cannot be supported by the neocolonial logic of the West.”
Kuznetsov believes this is the reason why the West is doing its best to crush the Middle East, create unviable quasi-states which would fully depend on the West in their foreign and internal policies. However, the expert thinks that “the plot led to consequences which were different from the initial plan of the plotters. In providing such a policy in the Middle East, the Americans caused the appearance of such destructive groups as Islamic State; they, like Frankenstein, are out of the control of their masters. The U.S. awakened destructive forces and they cannot control the forces now.”
Speaking about the role of Russia in the Middle East, Kuznetsov stated that “Moscow played well in the Syrian crisis, supporting the government of Bashar Assad and preventing a military invasion by the U.S. last year. In recent times interest in Russia is growing among regional players. The new Egyptian government headed by General el-Sisi wants to develop strategic partnership with Russia. Contracts on weapons exports, big economic agreements have been signed. Before the tragic events in Iraq, a certain rapprochement with Iraq was outlined, as well as intensification of relations with the Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. It is a positive trend.”
However, the great volume of financial and political resources, time, and attention are focused on the Ukrainian crisis, and Kuznetsov fears that “the trend of intensification of Russian foreign political efforts in the Middle East will be frozen."
