Analysis

The date of a Moscow conference on the Middle East may be set soon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a March 21 meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Lavrov said that Russia consulted with members of the “Quartet” — the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia — along with other members and hopes to set the timeline for the conference soon. Lavrov added, “The agenda of the meeting is simple. Several agreements were reached in Annapolis, all of us supported them, let’s reaffirm this support and promote all parties to reach an effective agreement.”

Russia — as a member of the international Quartet on the Middle East and through earlier unilateral dealings with Israel, Syria and Hamas — has been engaged in the Arab-Israeli conflict as part of its efforts to counter the growing U.S. geopolitical invasion of its turf in Eurasia. Russia has also been meddling in the U.S.-Iranian dealings on Iraq and is seeking to invest in the energy sectors of several Middle Eastern countries, especially Egypt, Algeria and Syria. Russia is looking to strategically get its hands on as much energy infrastructure as it can around the world, including in the Middle East.

But with the first stirrings of Cold War II under way, the Russian move to host a conference on peace is clearly an escalation of both Moscow’s involvement in the Middle East and its attempts to strike back at the United States. It is important to note that during the original Cold War, the Soviet Union was very heavily involved in the Middle East. Russia’s predecessor lent economic and military backing to countries and organizations like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, South Yemen and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

It is unlikely that Russia will - or can even try to - mimic the behavior of the Soviet Union. However, the Arabs (Syrians, Palestinians and Hamas) welcome any semblance of increased Russian interest in their affairs, which would explain why Abbas said he was prepared to attend the proposed conference. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem stated that Damascus could not miss a Russian-proposed follow-up conference to the 2007 Annapolis summit because the Golan Heights issue would again be discussed. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, whose group is unlikely to be attending the conference because of its international status as a terrorist non-state actor, gave Lavrov a proposal to scale back the conflict in the Gaza Strip when the two met March 20 in the Syrian capital.

Up until now, Russia’s involvement in the Arab-Israeli theater has been extremely limited in that Moscow has occasionally inserted itself tactically in its efforts to counter U.S. moves in the former Soviet Union. But now, in light of U.S. support for Kosovo following its secession from Serbia, the Russians have to demonstrate that they can seriously muck up the U.S. calculus in the Middle East. This means Russia will have to display some semblance of a sustained commitment to the Middle East (even if it is nothing radical such as supplying weapons to Syria and/or Iran).

In fact, staying the course in the Middle East will become a Russian necessity simply because Moscow’s multiple confrontations with the West in Eurasia will be prolonged. This raises the question of whether Russia has the bandwidth to maintain long-term involvement in the Middle East. If the answer is no, then the conference will come and go and business will go on as usual. If, however, the answer is even remotely yes, then there are significant implications.

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