EJIA LET'S GREAT and most important ally in the Middle East. Russian Jets now operate within reach Of the GOlan Heights, a contested territory that lsrael captured from Syria in the 1967 War and now divides the tWO countries. lsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited Putin in Moscow three times smce September 2015 ー・ more than he has visited Obama, with whom he had a notoriously rancorous relationship. Medvedev traveled tO lsrael in November last year tO mark 25 years Of diplomatic ties between the tWO countries, and tO bOOSt trade. Netanyahu is obviously concerned about Russia s cooperation With tWO Of ene- mles, lran and the Lebanon-based Shiite militia Hezbollah. He hopes t0 harness Russian influence with lsrael's enemies tO his benefit, and, SO far, Moscow has not objected when lsrael has conducted strikes against Hezb011ah in Syria. But Netanyahu had concerns about the U. S. , t00 : POSTER BOYS: Pedestrians in DaniIovgrad, Montenegro, flank a billboard showing a picture Of Putin and U.S. President DonaId Trump. 十 Obama overruled lsraeli objections tO a nuclear deal with lran and pressured the lsraeli leader t0 stop settlement building in the West Bank, a main obstacle tO reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians. On February 2 , the White House press secretary sean spicer echoed Obama's policy, saymg "the construction Of new settle- ments or the expansion Of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving peace. Russia, on the Other hand, makes no such tiresome demands 0f lsrael. After Washington set sanctlons on Russia following the annexation of Crimea, Putin has been pushing t0 make all the friends he can get in the region in order tO "develop a second front, ” says zvi lsraeli former Magen, tO Russia. ambassador Putin needs 1 ore lever- age with the West. … One [such lever] , the new one, is the Israeli-Palestinian process. ” After putin and Netanyahu's third meet- ing in Moscow in June—1n which the Russian leader called lsrael an uncondi- tional" ally—Russia offered tO host peace negotiations in Moscow between Net- anyahu and Abbas. ln this blossoming relationship, based on pragmatism, both leaders saw an opportunity: "tRUSSIA HAS コ BECOME VERY INFLUENTIAL IN SYRIA BECAUSE THEY ENGAGE IN BEHAVIOR WHICH, IN ANY OTHER PART OF THE WORLD, WOULD B E CONDEMNED AS WAR CRIMES. ” 調ーなド 0

home, KO 襯〃肥 4 れ右 radiO claimed the Syrian people were hailing putin as "Caesar"' while daily weather reports on Russian news began featuring the bombing conditions over Syria. By the end Of 2016 , Russia's defense minis- try boasted that its jets had performed 30 , 000 sorties and hit 62 , 000 targets. The U. S. -led coalition, by contrast, flew 135 , 000 miSS10ns against ISIS in Syria and lraq between 2014 and the end of January 2017 but damaged fewer than 32 , 000 targets. The mam reason: what the coalition says are StriCt rules tO limit civilian casualties. ln January, し S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter complained that Russia s alr war has done 'zero" t0 degrade ISIS.Whatever the impact Of the Russian campaign, most agree it has helped deplete U. S. -backed rebel forces and allowed Assad tO regain control 0fthe strategically vitalcity 0fAleppo. Senator Oleg Morozov, a member 0f Rus- S1a'S Federation council international affairs committee, says putin "had no chOice Other than tO step in. lt's not SO much that we need Assad in place—but we need some kind 0f stability in Syria. If we had allowed Assad t0 fall, that would have been the end ofour influence on the GENERAL ASSEMBLY: Libyan MiddIe East. " Either way, the Syria campaign strongman, Field qmckly became putin's symbolic rebuke, says MarshaI KhaIifa Haftar, returns Trenin, tO Obama's claims a year prior that home after a trip Russia was J11St a regional and a tO Moscow in December. The desperate one at that. militia leader, an The symbolic peak of Russia's self-appointed American citizen, has developed role as Syria S saVlOr came on May 2016 close ties with the just days after Assad's troops backed by Russian KremIin. special forces and close air support seized the interventions. At the same time, America was becoming less dependent on Middle Eastern 0il thanks tO a domestic shale gas revolution that has transformed the U. S. intO an energy-exporting country. But one umntended consequence was to allow Bogdanov t0 strike deals from Ramallah to Cairo and Benghazi, Libya. "The nature Of the Russian regime's foreign policy is extreme pragmatism, the absence 0f ideology and the attempt to deal with all the main players in a reglon, says Nik01ay Kozhanov, former attaché at Russia S embassy in Tehran, now with U. K. think tank Chatham House. 'So this should be considered as the mam prmciple Of Russia s strategy and its mam advantage in the Middle East. Unlike his American counterparts, Putin didn't lecture Egypt and Syria on democracy and human rights. "Russia saw an opportu- nity in Egypt because the U. S. has pushed for a reform envlronment since the Arab Spring, says Steve Seche, a former State Department offcial and U. S. ambassador to Yemen. The Russian president was alS0 ready t0 sell cheap arms t0 regional powers. Moscow has sold $ 4 billion worth ofweapons t0 Egypt since 2012 , and began talks with lran over a $ 10 billion deal in November 2016. But two crises took the MiddIe East from the sidelines of Russian foreign policy t0 front and center: Russia S annexation Of Crimea 2014 , which put Moscow in direct conflict with the West, and, the followingyear, the war in Syria, which Offered Putin an opportunity tO make sure Russia would become one of the Middle East's primary power broke rs. THE DAMASCUS GAMBIT On September 30 , 2015 , Putin ordered a squadron Of Russian jets t0 deploy t0 the Hmey- n11n1 airbase near Latakia, a stronghold 0f Assad loyalists. lt was Russia's first military deployment outside the former borders Of the Soviet Union Slnce Moscow S disastrous 1979 mvasion Of Afghanistan. With- in days, some 30 RuSSlan war- planes had already begun t0 turn the war in Assad's favor. Though the deployment was tiny, it was a pivotal moment for Moscow's foreign policy. Suddenly, Russian planes were flying in the S ame alrsp ace as those Of America and its allies, wh0 were battling ISIS. At

diplomatic bargaining chips t0 exchange for softening ofWestern sanctions imposed after the 2014 annexatlon Of Crimea—or for future use ln negotiations with the West. First and foremost this is a question Of regaining our strategic influence," senator Oleg Morozov, a Of S Federation Council international affairs committee, tells Ⅳビルルた . Or, as Dmitri Trenin, director Of Moscow's Carnegie Center, puts it: The goal Of [Putin's] foreign policy is to restore Russia as a global major power. For him t0 be able to operate in the Middle East, in competition with the U. S. , is a badge 0f [being] a major power. That is what Russia did in Syria. But perhaps more important than either Of these goals—and a motivation little understood in the West—is Moscow's desire tO protect Russia from radical lslamist terrorism, the fear ofwhich helped Putin ascend t0 power during the brutal wars in Russia s North Caucasus in the 1990S. Russia's homegrown insurgencies shaped its pol- itics SO that the Kremlin—and many Russians— favors order over personal nghts and freedoms. After watching the し S. try to import democracy t0 lraq and Libya a decade later, only tO see them crumble intO civil strife, putin saw a stark choice: Outside powers could side with strong regimes, however ruthless they might be, or the world will witness what he called "the destruction Of state systems and the rise Of ter- ronsm. As ISIS grew more influential in Syria, so did Putin's mlstrust ofWestern efforts tO combat the militant group. ln mid-September 2015 , Russia s security servlces announced that there were at least 2 , 500 Russian nationals fighting for ISIS. ln putin's eyes this was enough tO make the survival and success Of Assad'S a matter ofnational security for Russia. Our 1 れ alll a11 れ in Syria iS tO make sure that our citizens wh0 went out there [t0 fight with ISIS] never come says Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Duma member. For Russia, intervention in the MiddIe East is a matter of defending our own security. AII the rest is details. Defensive or not, Russia s return tO the Mid- dle East has proved a stunning, sudden suc- cess—and a setback tO American power and prestige ・ Up until recently the U. S. had no real diplomatic or military rival in the Middle East. NOW, as Donald Trump begins his presi- dency with promses of wiping out ISIS, there are Russian planes in the air and troops on the ground in Syria; battleships 0 代 the coast 0f Libya; and Moscow's friends occupy—or are in line tO occupy—presidential palaces from TriPOli tO Damascus. Any time Trump makes Western military actlon in Libya and Yemen helped produce failed states that are still mired in civil wars.Washington's backing 0fSyrian rebels and insistence that autocratic President Bashar al-Assad shouldn't stay in power allowed syria's CiVil war tO drag on, or even intensify—fueling the rise ofthe lslamic State militant group (ISIS). And a two-state solution between lsrael and the Palestinians—a longstanding goal of U. S. for- elgn policy—now seems further away than ever. After Obama's two terms, last year s historic lran nuclear deal, which curbed Tehran s nuclear pro- gram ln return for lifting sanctions, remams as the lone regional success story—and even that 100kS shaky under the new administration. Obama's entire policy in the Middle East has failed," says Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs in Russia S lower house 0f parliament (the Duma). "The power- lessness and the lack ofresults are evident. Observing America s setbacks, the Krem- lin sensed an opportunity. For Moscow, the advantages Of regaining some Of the SOViet Union s old influence in the Middle East are manifold: Russia can contlnue empire- building and projecting its growing global influence and military heft; it can alSO gather 1 THE NUMBER OF T 工 MES R E C E 工 V E D L E A D E R S 0 F M 工 DDLE STATES P U T 工 N H A S EASTERN S 工 N C E JANUARY 2 015 NEWSWEEK 27 02 / 17 / 2017