Russia and the Middle East: Towards a New Foreign Policy

The end of the Soviet Union precipitated a reassessment of Russia's foreign policy in many parts of the world, none more so than in the Middle East. Talal Nizameddin's book looks at how a once cherished commitment to ideological goals and superpower rivalry with the United States was replaced, after 1991, with a pragmatic foreign policy based on national interest, epitomized by the appointment of Yevgeni Primakov--an expert on Iraq--as foreign minister. Nizameddin examines Gorbachev's "new thinking," the foreign policy debates under President Yeltsin, the waning of Russian influence over the Palestinians and its consequent exclusion from the secret Oslo accords. Case studies of Russia's relations with Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran provide a detailed up-to-date analysis of the region's wider diplomatic and strategic concerns. Extensive use is made of both Russian and Arabic language sources and of interviews with Russian and Arab leaders and officials, including Yassir Arafat and Andrei Kozyrev.