Russia: the Power Broker in the Middle East?
... important to Moscow — from civil wars in Tajikistan and Afghanistan to the problem of the Caspian Sea partition. The third was Israel, with is large Russian and Russian-speaking diaspora and a thick fabric of political, economic, social, cultural, and human ... .... Russia could hope for only very modest progress in dealing with select Arab nations like Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. The relative stability of the region started to crumble in the wake of the Arab Spring. The changing situation presented Moscow both new challenges and new opportunities. On the one hand, the Kremlin had ...