RETHINKING RUSSIAN MISSION IN SYRIA
Since the collapse of the USSR, Syria has remained to be center of Russian Middle East foreign policy regarding its economic and political ties. As a result of the Arab Spring, the Syrian regime and President Assad has shaken with the unrestrained uprisings and western sanctions and eventually crisis turned into a fierce civil war. From the inauguration of the crisis Russia has never altered its political view on Syria even though there were expectations to the contrary. Moscow officially remained calling for “No military intervention against Syria” and that’s why three times vetoed US resolutions concerning widening sanctions or allowing multilateral military operations. However, Russia claims that Moscow is not protective of Syrian regime or Assad instead prevents Syria to fall into a long-term civil war. On the other hand, Syria is one of the most crucial arms importer of Russia and hosting Russian naval base on its Mediterranean coast. In this paper it is aimed to analyze the Russian stable and consistent foreign policy on Syria and its reasons as well as latest Russian and US rising tensions.
Russia's Syrian stance: principled self-interest
Russia's approach towards the crisis in Syria has attracted much criticism in Western and some Arab capitals. Moscow has supported a United Nations-led process to establish a political solution in Syria, and has periodically received visiting representatives of Syria's opposition movement over the last 18 months, but it has refused to back any UN Security Council resolution threatening sanctions or military force against the Syrian government. It has, moreover, also refused to back any demand that President Bashar al-Assad step down as a precondition for talks. Russia has supplied military equipment to Syria during the conflict, though deliveries were reportedly halted indefinitely in July 2012.
Soviet relations with Saudi Arabia and the Yemen 1917–1938
Soviet policy towards the rulers of western Arabia passed through five distinct phases in the two decades following the 1917 Revolution. The success of the Revolution in a relatively underdeveloped country, led the new Russian leaders to assume that revolution could succeed in the admittedly more underdeveloped countries of the East where a number of national independence movements were emerging.' Thus, in the heady euphoria after the establishment of the USSR, Moscow urged 'the toiling masses of the East' to overthrow their imperialist masters. But the naive nature of these early appeals only served to demonstrate that 'Marxist theoreticians had paid little attention to Eastern countries, or to colonized countries in general'.2 The Bolsheviks themselves rapidly appreciated that the masses 'suffering' at the hands of both the 'imperialist West' and the local bourgeoisie would require guidance if they were to gain their independence, and so from 1918 committees and organizations for their education in the principles of socialism were established in Moscow. The Russians soon came to realize that alone, the extremely small number of Communists in the East could not effect a socialist revolution or overthrow the western imperialist regimes in their countries. Thus, from the time of the Third Communist International a new policy was initiated which sought to secure the temporary collaboration of the nationalist bourgeoisie with revolutionary Communists. From this it was but a short step to the realization that Soviet policy towards each eastern country would have to be elaborated separat-ely, taking regard of its special situation and circumstances. There then followed an examination of the prevailing situation in individual countries, as a result of which treaties were concluded with Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan in 1921. Two years later the Soviets established diplomatic relations with King Husayn of the Hejaz, despite his relationship with 'British imperialism'. Upon the collapse of the Hachemite regime in the Hejaz, the Soviet Union hastened to recognize Ibn Saud and soon afterwards concluded a treaty of commerce and friendship with Imam Yahya of the Yemen, both of whom were regarded as active anti-imperialists. The increasing reliance placed by Ibn Saud and Imam Yahya on Britain and Mussolini's Italy respectively throughout the 1930s, as well as Ibn Saud's growing suspicion concerning the activities of Soviet Muslims posted to the Hejaz, coupled with the failure of Soviet trade missions in western Arabia and Soviet preoccupation with affairs in Europe, led to a revision of Russian policy which culminated in the recall of all Soviet personnel from Saudi Arabia and the Yemen in 1938.