In Jerusalem, six naked figures stand in a circle ringed with
barbed wire. This grim configuration, however, isn’t another turn
in the Middle East’s storied cycle of violence. It’s cause for
celebration — or at least an occasion for the record books.
For the first time in world history, the Russian head of state
has visited his Israeli counterpart. On a tour de presse
that crossed the Green Line, Vladimir Putin’s largely ceremonial
meeting with largely ceremonial Israeli President Moshe Katsav was
a significant, agenda-setting preface to his subsequent face time
with Levant PMs Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas.
And the six naked figures? Statues comprising a commemorative
Holocaust monument, gifted to Israel from the nation which spilled
more blood against Nazism than any other. In the weird logic of the
Russian-Israeli approchement, where Soviet enmity has been
replaced with handshakes and overtures, those six figures are
almost the equivalent of a Russian Statue of Liberty.
Almost. While one Kremlin hand taketh away the legacy of
MiG-equipped Arab attack squads, the other giveth missiles and
nuclear know-how to Syria and Iran, insistent that Israel has
nothing to fear from the new era of Russian internationalism. A
Assad regime with a bruised ego? “The missiles we are providing to
Syria…cannot reach Israeli territory,” the Associated Press
quoted Putin in Jerusalem. “To come within their range, you would
have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?” And as for the
Mullahs? “We are working to ensure their nuclear energy is used for
peaceful means,” he soothed.
Just as soon as the softies among us are willing to give Russia
a chance to make a real contribution to Mideast peace and stability
as a Quartet member, Putin virtually calls a Holy Land press
conference to lecture Israel on groundless paranoia. What, any
number of Moscow-cynics might ask, did you expect? Forthright
consistency?
BUT THE STORY ISN’T that simple. Planned hypocrisy and
double-dealing may still be comfortable tools in the grip of the
Russian leadership — whether Czarist, Communist, or “Other” — but
the Muscovite ship of state has sailed into uncharted waters, and
Putin knows the rules of the game have changed. On the western
flank, Russia has watched its historically most important border
erode into a European sea — with the Baltics already in the soup
and Ukraine, whose very name means “at the border,” too far from
shore to reel back in. Along the eastern frontier, the news is even
worse: Russia’s western border mania was always a function of its
desire to have access to Europe (which now it has in spades), but
the China Question has no easy answers. Underpopulated,
underpoliced, riven with AIDS and hard to rule, Siberia makes a
pale sister to the extravagant assertiveness of cross-border
China.
All this means that Russia, since the fall of Communist rule,
has fallen, as a great power, on hard times indeed. Putin knows
what he’s saying, and to whom, when he calls the death of the USSR
“a genuine tragedy” and “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of
the century.” For the west, 1991 was a year of victory; for
Russians, the death-rattle of the Soviet jalopy not only ushered
out an empire but ushered in a broad new range of embarrassing
problems whose solutions were not immediately apparent.
Putin’s still improvising. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a play
for relevance and power, in the only region where Russia can seize
the initiative in policy and profile. Neither in Europe nor in Asia
can Russia be a player without playing second fiddle to America,
the EU, or China. In the Middle East, however — where not even
good ideas always work — Putin can credibly make statesmanlike
maneuvers. He can offer a peace summit in Moscow, knowing that at
least the Palestinians would jump at the gambit. (They did.) He can
show the Arab world that it’s possible to stand next to Israel
without selling out to Israel (a policy that cuts both ways, as far
as American interests are concerned) by offering significant, if
controlled, sympathy for Israeli worry. “We are…not changing the
balance of power,” Putin announced. “Israel has no problem here.”
When he discovered Syria was due to receive missiles Israel
couldn’t intercept, Putin confided, he “canceled the deal.” And
regarding Iran? “I agree that [the current] steps are not enough,”
declared Putin, “and we have to get Iran to agree to nuclear
inspections.”
Although he has not quite gone so far as to place a statue of
Natan Sharansky (Russian prisoner and Jewish emigre) at the center
of Jerusalem, Putin’s willingness to publicly endorse Israeli
concerns as valid shows a new Russian strategy that may well offer
the U.S. tangible policy benefits. Although the bad news is nothing
new — Russia wants influence in the Middle East, Russia isn’t
afraid to do business with America’s foes, Russia still dreams of
access to warm-water ports on the open ocean — the good news could
look like this:
As Iran’s only great-power friend, Russia can act as security
guarantor in the Middle East proliferation crisis. The American
strategy, perhaps inevitably, has forced itself down a road of what
are euphemistically called “hard choices”; the EU, as always, has
demonstrated itself master of every state of negotiation except
closing the deal. If Russia can seriously and invasively ensure
that Iranian nuclear power is used only for peaceful purposes —
i.e., because Iranian nuclear power is essentially entirely Russian
— then every actor involved benefits at least in the sense of
averting hard choices.
Why would Putin do such a thing? Russia is weak and weakening on
its western and eastern flanks. The opportunity to exercise some
muscle along its southerly reaches — in a way constrained by
international norms and Western interests — is less of an
obligation than an objective for Russia. Demonstrating its ability
to act in its own interest, while going the extra mile to ensure
everyone else’s worries over Iran are calmed, would allow Russia
simultaneously to be brought into the fold as a real great power
and to stand on its own two feet diplomatically. And this, in turn,
for instance, would likely lessen Russian worries over
“interference” in Belarus and in Central Asia.
ENCOURAGING SUCH AN OPTION for a Russian-based solution to the Iran
crisis isn’t without risks, of course. Russia needs to finish
building the sort of trust with America and Europe that it still
hasn’t built with its own citizens. With his Jerusalem pilgrimage,
Putin has made it clear that his enablement of Damascus and Tehran,
though defiant, is limited. Both Syria and Iran need to be
constrained as the Middle East undergoes its vastest changes since
the Muslim conquest. Tied down with the completion of its
successes, America needs more than a reliable regional partner like
Europe — it needs an effective power that can achieve results in
general accordance with American interests.
Although at this stage little should be taken for granted,
Russia can be that power — by keeping Syria subservient and calm
in the wake of the Cedar Revolution, and by running the Iranian
nuclear program with the daily, institutionalized oversight that
the United Nations has never been able to negotiate itself into.
Such responsibilities are both necessary and beyond our reach. At
Jerusalem, Putin has signaled that Russia may finally be willing to
grow up and help out.
