... side’. This interpretation of the can be regarded as biased, oversimplified and self-serving, but it clearly got a lot of traction in the Middle East region, especially among conservative political regimes concerned about a possible new wave of the Arab Spring.
Ruslan Mamedov:
Prospects for Russia–China Cooperation in the Middle East
Within this context the initial stage of the Russian military operation in Syria, launched in September of 2015, should be regarded primarily as a “pedagogical” action. The Russian intention was not to diminish the US positions in the ...
... officials coined their new approach to the Middle East, that can be summarized the following way:
First. Authoritarian states in the Middle East are in any case better than failed states that come to replace the former after public uprisings (which are often ... ....g. Mubarak in Egypt); even a UN Security Council resolution can be violated or interpreted in a very liberal way.
Third. If Russia remains an idle bystander watching the Arab Spring from the sideline, the chaos, instability and terrorism generated in the Arab world will ultimately spill over Russia’s ...
... countries were fighting on the side of the Chechen secessionists. On the other hand, for example, Egypt remains one of the largest importers of the Russian grain. Russia is interested in the political and economic stability in the region, in turning the Middle East into a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as well as in a mutually satisfactory resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Russia tries to avoid taking sides in the Sunni-Shia disputes supporting those in the region who stand for religious tolerance and respect for minority rights. The Arab Spring of 2011–2012 changed many fundamentals in the region. Many of authoritarian Arab regimes were shattered having failed to cope with challenges of a much overdue political and social transition. Non-state actors of radical and fundamentalist ...
... other Arab states. Until the protests in Deraa, Syria’s southwest, broke out, Bashar al-Assad had been convinced that the Arab spring’s revolutionary momentum would not spill into Syria. The regime seemed to have learned from other Arab dictators’ ... ... triggered a civil war.
As the violence in Syria escalated, a regional conflict morphed into an issue of international concern. Russia, Iran, Lebanon’s militia group Hizbullah, and China backed the Assad regime. The so-called “Friends of Syria,...
... the world witnessed a hitherto unseen and largely unexpected course of events in the Middle East. Following the eruption of protests ignited by Mohamed Bouazizi’s... ... failed to translate into stable democratic governance. And two-and-a-half years into the Arab Spring, the maelstrom of unrest has once again engulfed the Middle East. Supported... ... heed to political and economic dynamics in the country. Although it is unclear whether Russian wheat aid to Egypt will bring any political dividends for the Kremlin, policymakers...
... eastern rural power-base) government is steering the country right into the centre of grand bargaining for both Russia and for the US. To this emerging triangular constellation, ambitious and bold PM Erdoğan wishes to beat his own drum.
Past the Arab Spring, neither will Russia effectively sustain its presence in the Middle East on a strict pan-Arabic secular, republican and anti-Islamic idea, nor will the US manage to politically and morally justify its continuous backing off of the absolutistic monarchies that are so energized by the backward, dismissive and oppressive ...
