Jerusalem Post - 10.02.2002

 

 

Jerusalem Post

A Different Game Than Russian Roulette 

By Uri Dan

Russia isn't really opposed to the planned American attack against Saddam Hussein, but only makes noises that help to create such an impression. 

I had the opportunity of learning about the complex and complicated Russian game in the Middle East, in the light of the planned US campaign against Baghdad, during a visit to Moscow this week when I spoke with several experts.

This is not Russian roulette but a calculated game. 

Russia outwardly condemned the Anglo-American bombing in Iraq this week. On the international stage Russia prefers to urge the US to restore the UN weapons inspection over Saddam Hussein so they can discover and destroy his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. 

"It's apparently too late," said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to President Vladimir Putin during their conversation in the Kremlin last Monday, when they also discussed the Iraqi crisis at length. "The inspectors are of no use," continued Sharon. "Over recent years Saddam Hussein has acted without any kind of arms supervision. Renewed inspection by the UN will not be effective in detecting and destroying everything that he has succeeded in producing and concealing over this period." 

Sharon also explained that the Iraqis have experts possessing a great deal of know-how. 

It is almost certain that Putin and his administration also know very well, despite their official declarations, that because of Saddam's reputation for deceit and fraud the renewal of inspection, as proposed by Russia, is a ludicrous idea. 

Apparently Putin is also well aware that Saddam's dictatorial regime and the biological-chemical weapons in his possession are a guaranteed formula for death and destruction.

However, Russia, in its role as a former superpower, is trying to make difficulties for the US precisely because it knows that America's war against Saddam Hussein is inevitable. 

RUSSIA IS therefore already trying to establish its status as a power, in Iraq in particular and in the Middle East in general, for the period following the coming war. 

The Kremlin, which suffered not a few setbacks in the Middle East during the days of the USSR, is now trying slowly to restore its position in the Middle East as the new Russia. 

Iraq is too important from the geo-economic aspect for Russia to agree to give up a serious foothold in it. It seems that the Kremlin wants to make sure that if the US topples Saddam's regime by force, Russia will retain its economic position there. 

Russia is afraid that the renewal of the flow of Iraqi oil is liable to cause a drop in oil prices that will harm its economy. The Russians also want a part in the reconstruction of Iraq from its current ruins and those that will be produced in the coming war. 

Just recently Russia signed an enormous $40 billion economic-commercial agreement with the Iraqi government. A senior Russian personality told me: "This is a classic example of a step intended to establish Russia's status in post-Saddam Iraq. By means of this agreement Russia has said to America, in effect: We are also here, in Iraq." 

Russia is in fact telling the US something like this: We here in Moscow know that you will go to war without us, but you should realize that it would be better for you to go to Baghdad without our opposition. It is therefore preferable that the US already agree with Russia what it will receive for its support of the American step, even if this were to be an tacit agreement. 

In contrast, after his meeting with Putin, Sharon said: "Anyone who thinks that Russia is motivated solely by financial considerations is mistaken. The scope of Russia's interests is far broader than this. Russia is conscious of the threat to regional and international stability produced by fundamentalist Muslim terrorism and those countries that support it. The US, Russia, and Israel are exposed more than anyone else to this terror, and they consequently understand the need to make a joint stand against it. 

This is an important foundation for cooperation between the three countries," Sharon told me. 

Sharon told Putin that he was convinced that Russia knows how to combat this extremist Muslim terrorism, just as in World War II it battled heroically against the "Nazi beast."

Sharon, who knows Russian from his childhood, noticed that the interpreter in the Kremlin incorrectly translated this phrase as the "Nazi animal." Sharon quickly corrected the interpreter, and said laughingly: 

"We like animals such as sheep, horses, and dogs. I mean that we should know how to stand together against the monster of terrorism, whom we now have to fight, just as you so heroically fought against the Nazi beast." 

The writer is the Mideast correspondent of The New York Post.