Volume 4, No. 3 - September 2000
Volume 4, No. 3 - September 2000
Editor's
Summary: The
rethinking of Soviet politics and strategy
initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 had an important effect on Moscow's
Middle East policy and on its allies in that region. Regarding the PLO, the
altered Soviet line encouraged it toward negotiations with Israel. In some ways,
the decline of Soviet support also forced the PLO toward concessions. The
refusal of the USSR to back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait helped doom Baghdad to
defeat. While Moscow was acting to improve relations with the West, it also
hoped to export its new ideology to allies and thus preserve Soviet influence.
For their part, the PLO and Iraq sometimes misread the situation by backing
Soviet hardliners in their attempts to subvert Gorbachev's policies.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, bringing
with him a new way of thinking that transformed the country. The "New
Thinking" in Soviet policy focused more on resolving than on exploiting
regional conflicts. This approach was especially evident in the Middle East.
Two longstanding Soviet allies in the region-the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and Iraq-were greatly affected, though in different ways, by
the new state of affairs. The PLO responded positively to Gorbachev's prodding
to re-orient its thinking toward peace with Israel. In contrast, Iraq chose to
make war against Kuwait, the United States, and Israel in 1990-1991. Both
situations well illustrate the core tenets and challenges of Soviet New
Thinking.
In the
PLO's case, the New Thinking was quite successful. Following Gorbachev's
example, the PLO made a momentous decision in the late 1980s to abandon its
armed struggle against Israel in favor of diplomatic efforts to achieve
Palestinian statehood.
But in
Iraq's case, Soviet policy was an abysmal failure and contributed to Gorbachev's
fall from power. Indeed, Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein had direct connections with Gorbachev's right-wing
supporters in Moscow who opposed Gorbachev's Westward tilt and found it hard to
adapt to the new environment. Misreading Moscow's intentions and directions,
Iraq relied on force and set off a major international crisis. Saddam's
aggression against Kuwait presented a dilemma for Gorbachev. Supporting Iraq
would alienate the Arab world and the United States, which were the potential
source of much-needed economic aid. Abandoning an old Soviet friend, however,
would arouse the anger of entrenched conservatives at home. His options, all
rooted in the program of reform, were poor.
PERESTROIKA
Throughout the years of Leonid Brezhnev's leadership and even more so
after his death in 1982, Soviet leaders realized that they were losing ground
vis-a-vis the West in every sphere, including the military one. Active U.S.
support for anti-communist fighters from Central America to Afghanistan, plus
Washington's evident determination to outspend, out-research, and ultimately
out-deploy the Soviet Union militarily, convinced Moscow that it could no longer
afford the military competition. "In the end," Gorbachev told his
colleagues, "we found
ourselves drawn into the arms race which could not but affect the country's
social and economic development and international positions."(1)
As a result of the USSR's situation, leaders favored tension-reducing
accommodation with the West instead of confrontation. Support for movements of
national liberation, proxy wars, or superpower brinkmanship gave way to
diplomacy. "The Soviet Union," wrote Alexi Izyumov and Andrei
Kortunov, academicians with the Soviet Institute of the United States and
Canada, "has come to the point when it is necessary to adopt a doctrine
which would give the country a respite needed to restructure its economy and
make the socialist path of development more attractive."(2)
Moreover, the hard line rigidity of Brezhnev's rule allowed Soviet
clients to take advantage of Moscow's support, further jeopardizing Soviet
interests. As former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze later wrote,
"Our allies in the [Middle East] abused our readiness to uphold
their interests and all too often used us to block various peace
initiatives."(3) Thus, with political and ideological rigidity came
economic and social paralysis.
In this milieu, Perestroika, or "restructuring," was born.
Gorbachev developed the concept from a clear need to save the revolution from
its failures or, as Izyumov and Kortunov wrote, of the high price of the Soviet
Union's past mistakes. (4) Gorbachev's idea was to adapt Soviet foreign policy
to meet the needs of the country's domestic economy. By changing its policies
and gaining prestige and credit in the West, the Soviet leadership expected to
receive foreign support and financial aid from West Germany, the United States,
and especially the oil-rich Arab world. A more relaxed international environment
would let the Soviets concentrate on domestic reforms. As Business Week put it,
"Gorbachev has no other choice but to hope that his stellar
reputation as a world statesman is collateral enough for Western money."(5)
Georgiy Arbatov, the director of the Institute for the Study of the
U.S.A. and Canada, commented on the need to concentrate on domestic reform in
the Soviet Union in a 1989 book of interviews with Soviet supporters of
Perestroika:
"There
still are people here who cling to old ideas about the priority of promoting
revolutions abroad-people who still think we can work miracles when foreign
Marxists ask us for help. But it doesn't work. The best way to influence other
countries is by reforming our own system. Perestroika involves a new way of
thinking about foreign policy, which begins with seeing realities as they are,
not as we want them to be."(6)
This policy's goal, then was three-fold: to save the Soviet Union itself,
to restore its strength and parity with the United States, and to give Moscow a
new ideological export. The last point has been far less understood than the
first two as a factor in Soviet strategy. Yet Gorbachev and his advisors spoke
often about that idea. According to Vladimir Zagladin, then head of the Soviet
Communist party's International Department: Gorbachev's approach was "in
harmony with the world imperatives….One could go even further
and say that New Thinking…is increasingly becoming the new thinking for
the whole world." Perestroika corresponded with the "transition from
the previously assumed primacy of class interests to the primacy of universal
human interests."(7) In short, this was an attempt to put Soviet foreign
policy on an entirely new basis.
Yet, while these new concepts sounded good on paper, Gorbachev
underestimated the extent of opposition to reform by those who feared losing
their privileges and power. During a meeting in New York with President Ronald
Reagan and President-Elect George Bush in December 1988, Gorbachev answered the
question when he was quoted as saying: "You'll see soon enough that I'm not
doing this for show....I'm doing this because there's a revolution taking place
in my country. I started it. And they all applauded it in 1986 and now they
don't like it so much, but it's going to be a revolution, nonetheless." (8)
Later, Gorbachev would admit in 1993, "We moved too fast. Society
wasn't ready."(9) His foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, later pointed
out, Gorbachev "was so single-minded that some of the domestic critics he
and I have in common complained that foreign policy was getting too far out in
front, cutting itself off from the home front."(10) While critics worried
that Gorbachev would bring down their system at home, they also saw him as
ceding Soviet power to the United States and
abandoning traditional friends, especially in the Middle East.
While
Gorbachev failed at home, it can be argued that on the international level--and
especially in the Middle East--his efforts contributed to peace.
MIDDLE
EAST DIPLOMACY
By 1988, the Soviet Union's goals in the Middle East had undergone their
second great strategic shift since World War II. From 1945 until the Suez crisis
of 1956, the Soviets were almost single-mindedly concerned with evicting British
imperialism from the Middle East. As a consequence, Moscow saw Zionism
positively as a force reducing the British presence, while much of the Arab
world as being pro-British. After Suez, the Soviets reversed their policy and
came to view the Middle East as rigidly divided into an American camp and a
Soviet camp, with Israel was considered an agent of American imperialism. Thus,
in order to weaken the U.S. position, Soviet policy became avowedly anti-Israel.
By the time Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Moscow could congratulate
itself on its Middle East policy, but only up to a point. The Soviets
undoubtedly had created major problems for U.S. policy in the Middle East and
had created a pro-Soviet bloc there. Yet sustaining a permanent military threat
to Israel and working to destabilize Western access to Middle East oil cost the
Soviets even more than the West. "Soviet assistance to the developing
countries," Iyuzomov and Kortunov wrote, "too often brings only
fleeting results.…Suddenly, we began to realize that the image of our country
began to lose attraction." (11)
To gain the trust of the Arab world as well as to convince the West of
the sincerity of New Thinking, the Soviets needed to prove their commitment to
Arab-Israeli peacemaking in more than theory. Yet this also could risk losing
radical Soviet allies in the region. A. Vasilyev, writing in Pravda on
Soviet-Arab relations in February 1989, asserted: "Let's be frank: The new
ideas in Soviet foreign policy have confused some of our traditional close
friends--the representatives of revolutionary democrats, communists, and other
left forces." Yet, Vasilyev declared: "We need one another
economically. The geographical proximity and continental scale of both the USSR
and the Arab world condemns us to mutually beneficial cooperation."(12) In
the same vein, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze declared a week later in a
well-publicized speech in Cairo: "Upheavals in the Near East always affect
us very strongly. The Soviet people are especially sensitive to anything that
happens here, because tension in this region costs us dearly, in all respects,
including materially." (13)
As sensitive to the region as Shevardnadze asserted the Soviets were,
they set their sights on two goals relating to Israel: reforming the PLO's
intention of destroying Israel and re-establishing diplomatic relations with
Israel. These steps could persuade the United States to accept the USSR as a
legitimate partner in Middle East diplomacy, while establishing the Soviet
Union's central role by making it a co-sponsor of the diplomatic process.
An
editorial on Radio Moscow explained this approach succinctly: "As for our
relations with Arab countries in the new era, we give explicit priority to
economic ties with them. The fact that both [the Soviet Union and the Arab
world] are the world's most important oil exporters provides another opportunity
for cooperation."(14) A strategy of economic cooperation with the Arab
states, combined with a more forthcoming attitude toward the West, was intended
to demonstrate the indispensability of the Soviet Union in the international
system. Developing better relations with Israel, according to Shevardnadze,
could help improve trade and other relations with the United States, which had
made improved ties dependent on an
improved Soviet record regarding human rights and Jewish emigration. At the same
time, Gorbachev lifted emigration restrictions.(15)
Gorbachev also took steps to change the PLO's stance toward Israel,
beginning on April 11, 1988, when he received Arafat in Moscow. The ostensible
purpose of the meeting was to review Soviet-PLO relations, but Gorbachev's real
aim quickly emerged: he wanted the PLO to recognize Israel. He asked the to use
UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as a basis for this fundamental strategic reversal.
Gorbachev told Arafat that recognition of Israel was the "necessary element
for the establishment of peace and good neighborliness in the region."(16)
The news of Gorbachev's policy change was purposely leaked and widely reported
by the Western media. The aim was to pressure the PLO, and Israel, too, for that
matter to solve their dispute. Arafat, wanting to avoid comment on the
initiative, nevertheless had to acknowledge Gorbachev's request.
Following this meeting, the Soviets moved quickly to add to the pressure
on the PLO. On June 8, 1988, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze met with Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The meeting focused on the visit of an Israeli
consular team to Moscow whose primary mission would be to facilitate
emigration.(17) That team arrived in Moscow at the end of July. At about the
same time, Vladimir Terrasov, deputy head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry's
Middle East department, told Nimrod Novick, an advisor to Prime Minister Shimon
Peres, that the Soviet Union was playing a "significant role" in
developments within the PLO concerning a declaration of Palestinian statehood.
The Soviets wanted the Israelis to know that Moscow could be helpful in
providing early warnings of important developments, which equally suggested the
USSR could help ensure these changes could be to Israel's benefit.(18)
THE
SOVIET DIPLOMATIC OFFENSIVE
At a November 15, 1988, meeting of the Nineteenth Extraordinary Session
of the Palestinian National Council (PNC, the PLO's legislative arm) in Algiers,
Arafat proclaimed Palestinian independence. While the Soviets recognized this
declaration, Igor Kudrin of Moscow Television's "The World Today,"
reminded viewers: "Of course, comrades, you and I realize that the act of
proclaiming the new state is of a symbolic nature, as yet."(19)
After the Algiers meeting, Gorbachev's men very publicly began to lavish
praise upon the PLO for its "brave" moves. In this spirit, A. Kiselev
wrote in the Red Army newspaper, Krasnaya Zvedzda: "There is no doubt that
the constructive decisions of the recent PNC [Palestinian National Council]
session show that the Palestinian leadership has grasped the principles of the
new political thinking and is acting in accordance with them."(20) The
Soviet diplomatic offensive continued in the following weeks, urging the PLO and
Israel to "take advantage of the unique chance" to advance the peace
process.(21)
Comparing PLO actions to New Thinking, the Soviets transferred their own
reassessment in explaining the PLO's stance. They described in glowing terms how
the PLO's decisions were, "The result of the manifestation of realism in
policy, of new thinking of the PLO leadership." Soviet commentators
approvingly noted how Moscow insisted "that all the parties involved in the
Middle East conflict should consider the realities of the situation in the
region to ensure freedom of choice, agree on guarantees for mutual security,
respect the views and stands of others, be tolerant, and [foster] peace and
mutual understanding."(22) One commentator concluded: "[Israel] cannot
afford to disregard the growth of the prestige of the PLO in the
world."(23)
The Soviets were doing more than offering free advice on the Middle East.
They were trying to export Gorbachev's principles to their client and ally, the
PLO, just as previous Soviet
leaders had done with their foreign clients and allies. Moscow's policymakers
were also acting in the Middle East with the West's reactions foremost in their
mind. Arbatov wrote: "Of course, we are not imposing our perestroika on
others. But I do think that the very fact of perestroika in our country, while
giving others an example, also introduces a palpable element of normalization
into the international situation."(24) Genrikh A. Borovik, president of the
Soviet Peace Committee and long-time Soviet commentator suggested: "We
advise our friends, but this does not mean they have to listen to us."(25)
THE
Gorbachev's policy did help the PLO and was also in accord with the PLO's
own evolution and strategic situationWhile PLO groups were engaged in hot debate over their own organization's
policies, they were able to agree on expressing appreciation for Moscow's
initiative. For example, Muhammad 'Abbas, head of the Palestinian National Front
and mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking, aligned his statements with the
New Thinking. He announced in 1989, "Many of the PLO's achievements in the
international arena recently have been determined to a considerable extent by
the results of the meeting between Y. Arafat and M. S. Gorbachev a year
ago."(26)
The PLO, a Soviet foreign ministry spokesman concluded, had
"imparted a powerful impulse to the peace efforts, upgraded contacts
between the concerned parties, and resulted in the beginning of an official
dialogue" with the United States."(27) Ironically, Soviet commentators
even compared the Palestinians' accomplishments and spread of their ideals with
popular uprisings then underway against communist rule in Eastern Europe. The
Palestinian struggle, Moscow's International Service announced in Arabic, has
attracted great respect. "It is not accidental that the peoples in East
Europe, the GDR [East Germany], Czechoslovakia, and Romania went on to the
streets repeating the word intifada. That means that this Palestinian uprising
and the movements of the masses in East Europe are one for democracy and
freedom."(28)
As the PLO's initiatives and prestige spread, so did its ability to
employ the lessons of the New Thinking to its advantage. The PLO in fact became
Gorbachev's prize pupil. When Iranian leader 'Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani urged
the indiscriminate murder of Westerners in retaliation for Palestinian deaths
incurred during the intifada, Arafat and Moscow rejected this call. The latter
explained: "Who can guarantee that among the Palestinians there will not be
a few hotheads who are unaware of politics and who will take Tehran's remarks
seriously? Thus, a serious blow will be inflicted on the policy that the PLO has
now adopted and that is slowly and patiently trying to build up peace in the
Near East." (29) Moscow also pointed out that many in the West would be
"overjoyed to find a pretext on which to accuse the PLO of terrorism to
stop the Palestinians' peaceful offensive." (30)
But, of course, words were not enough. Moscow sought concrete results in
the Middle East, which involved a trade-off for Israel: diplomatic relations
with the Soviet Union, leading immediately to open emigration, in exchange for
and negotiations with the PLO including Soviet sponsorship of talks. This phase
of Gorbachev's gambit in the Middle East began in earnest early in 1989.
DIPLOMATIC
RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL
On February 23, 1989, Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens and Soviet
foreign minister Shevardnadze agreed to upgrade Soviet-Israeli relations to
consular status, allowing them to focus on the chief issue between the two
states-emigration. Soon after, articles began to appear in the Soviet press
advocating the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel. Even
Communist party officials urged the resumption of ties. Karen Brutents, a
Central Committee official responsible for Middle Eastern affairs, commented:
"We consider having diplomatic relations with Israel as normal, beneficial,
and necessary. We want to renew diplomatic relations, but [Israel] must prove
that you desire this as well. This cannot be done without solving the Middle
East conflict once and for all. Today, the chances of achieving a solution are
better than they have ever been." (31) The Soviets established consular
relations with Israel on March 14, 1989, less than three weeks after they
upgraded the PLO mission in Moscow to the level of an embassy.
In a revealing comment on the logic of the new diplomacy, Radomir
Bagdanov of the Soviet Committee for the Defense of Peace observed: "We
have supported only one side while our foreign policy rival, the United States,
has managed to maintain relations with almost all parties to the conflict, which
incidentally, has been of inestimable benefit to the United States' ally in the
Near East--Israel." (32)
Israel benefited from the new relations in the form of immigration. In
September 1989, 3,500 Jews left the Soviet Union. Two months later, that number
nearly quadrupled. In December 1990, the number jumped to 35,000. By the end of
1991, over 325,000 Soviet Jews had emigrated to Israel.(33)
From the Arab point of view, however, this step in the Perestroika policy
appeared as a disaster. Arafat's critics blamed the PLO for going along with a
massive strengthening of Israel. "Just as we have predicted,"
proclaimed a Syrian-backed clandestine Palestinian radio station, "the
Soviet Jews are still streaming in, while their excellencies of the PLO look
on."(34) The PLO, of course, was clearly not pleased about the increase in
Jewish emigration to Israel. Its ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nabil 'Amr,
said publicly "several 'clouds' have appeared in Soviet-Arab relations.
Both sides must find ways to overcome these disagreements."(35)
Other
Palestinian leaders were more explicit in condemning what they saw as a failure.
Faysal al-Husayni, noted acerbically: "I personally believe that the Soviet
Union is attempting to find a cure for its situation created by the Perestroika
policy through unsuccessful medicines which it believes are successful. However,
regrettably, these medicines also have harmful side effects. We the Palestinians
have felt the harmful side effects through the issues of emigration and open
doors to travel without any restrictions." Husayni, however, declined to
attack the USSR: "I also do not believe that the Soviet Union is a partner
in an international deal--whose substance is Jewish emigration--without denying
that other powers have exploited and benefited from this reality against the
interests of the Palestinians and the Soviet Union."(36)
IRAQ,
THE PLO, A
While
the Palestinians went along with much of the Soviet New Thinking. Iraq was about
to create a major headache for the Soviet leaders. In the early morning of
August 2, 1990, Iraq's army occupied Kuwait and immediately declared it Iraq's
nineteenth province. If the Iraqis expected Soviet support or even neutrality,
their expectation would soon be corrected.
Describing Saddam as a "hangover" on the morning after the
celebration of the Cold War's end, The Economist's editors correctly judged the
likely Soviet position on the invasion: "Much as President Gorbachev would
like a higher price for Soviet oil, he is sensibly looking Mr. Hussein's
gift-horse in the mouth. Backing an Arab dictator against the capitalist world
whose help he so badly needs would undo everything he has aimed for in five
years of smooth diplomacy."(37)
Indeed, Saddam's armed invasion of a smaller neighbor violated the spirit
and intentions of New Thinking. "What kind of adversary is it whose total
force, including police, are fewer than 20,000, whose territory is 25 times
smaller than Iraq's and whose population is less than half of Baghdad's?"
asked Vladimir Mkhailov in the Communist Party publication, Rabochaya
Tribuna.(38)
Condemning the invasion of Kuwait was not intended merely to call
attention to the breach of the new international spirit of cooperation. In the
atmosphere of openness, historical comparisons soon began to appear pointing out
the malevolent nature of Saddam's actions as violating universal human rights.
"President Saddam's coming to power," wrote a commentator in the
Soviet daily Sovietskya Rossiya, "was accompanied by an unprecedented
campaign to physically annihilate any dissidence, let alone any potential
opposition."(39)
Others
went further. "The blackmail to which Saddam Husayn is resorting is
comparable to the actions of the barbarians or the internecine strife during the
dark days of the Middle Ages. Even Hitlerite Germany during the last war did not
permit itself such an unceremonious flouting of diplomatic immunity."(40)
To be compared with Hitler was the extreme insult of Soviet propaganda and had
been, previously reserved for only the most hostile of enemies of the Soviet
Union (usually the United States).
Near
the end of its broadcast on August 30, 1990, a Radio Moscow domestic service,
commentator condemning the invasion worried, "What might ensue if Baghdad
actually had the atomic bomb in its possession right now?" (41)
While the Soviet reaction was in line with that of the United States,
Gorbachev could not completely shake the Soviet past. Grumbling inside the USSR
came largely from the military about the severity of his and Shevardnadze's
reaction. There were also over 5,000 Soviet non-military specialists and 150
military specialists scattered all over Iraq who had to be protected from war or
Iraqi reprisals. Consequently, Gorbachev's decided in late August to send
Yevgeniy Primakov to Baghdad as his personal representative to calm the
situation.(42) He reasoned that the Soviet military's reaction had to be
balanced not only with the dictates of New Thinking, but also with Soviet public
opinion. According to a September poll in The Moscow News, 15 percent of
respondents believed that the USSR was responsible for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
and 38 percent believed it was responsible to "some extent."(43)
Primakov, a veteran Soviet Arabist, was also an advocate of strong ties
between the USSR and radical Arab states. He knew Saddam well, and said that he
understood the Iraqi leader's "psychology." He wrote, "My
relationship with Saddam Hussein was obviously taken into consideration when
President Gorbachev instructed me ...to leave for Baghdad."(44)
At about the same time, Saddam gave a speech promising to seek a peaceful
solution to the Kuwait crisis in conjunction with a solution to the Palestinian
problem and a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Clearly designed to garner
domestic and Arab support, Saddam had claimed the role of the Palestinians'
protector at the expense of Kuwait. "I must be blunt," Primakov wrote
explaining Palestinian sympathy for this ploy, "and say that among the Arab
masses the occupation of Kuwait could be seen as a justifiable price to pay for
resolving the Palestinian problem."(45)
Palestinians already agitated at the Jewish immigration brought about by
the USSR's New Thinking were willing to accept this linkage. They worried that
Moscow was not supportive enough of either the PLO or Iraq.
"[W]hat do you see when you sit in front of the television in
Moscow?," asked Nabil Amr, the Palestinian Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
"Events in the Gulf have totally overshadowed the course of the
intifada." He continued: "The Intifada can in no way be separated from
the events taking place in the Gulf, just as the problems of Palestine cannot be
separated from the problems of Lebanon, for instance, because all this is taking
place in the same region."(46)
But Gorbachev could not back the Palestinians without alienating the rest
of the Arab world and especially the West. Instead he used the linkage to
advance the notion of convening an international conference. In a speech in
Vladivostok on September 4, 1990, Shevardnadze asserted this point when he said:
"Presumably, Israel's agreement to [a conference's] convocation could exert
a positive influence on the overall situation in the Middle East and on efforts
to defuse the crisis in the Persian Gulf."(47) Soviet policymakers hoped
that by advocating the notion that only Israel would benefit from Iraq's
aggression, they would foil Saddam's attempt to gain Arab sympathy by linking
the invasion to the Palestinian problem.
Gorbachev wanted to maintain Soviet prominence in the region by striking
a delicate balance, resurrecting what remained of the old Soviet-Iraqi
friendship to avoid war while bringing peace to the region vis-a-vis the
Palestinians, twin goals of New Thinking. "[I]t may be said, that if we
want to find a political solution to the conflict in the Gulf region,"
declared Vladimir Kavalev on Radio Moscow International's Arabic Service,
"it is important to maintain contacts with Baghdad. Evidence of the
necessity of this step is seen in the practice of resolving all international
crises."(48)The Palestinians' support for
Iraq was a complicating factor. If the Soviets could mitigate the losses in the
PLO's drift from moderation and bring Iraq back from the brink, New Thinking
would have another success and Gorbachev could legitimately claim the merits of
his approach abroad for his deft diplomacy. The economic and political rewards
he would gain would surely counter the hardliners.
Gorbachev decided to send Primakov on a second trip to Baghdad in early
October to secure the release of Soviet technicians in Iraq (something the
United States also wanted so they would not help Iraq's war effort) and to
assess Saddam's state of mind. Primakov later wrote that Saddam made his
position quite obvious when he confirmed that he had developed a "Masada
complex" about Kuwait. (49) One bright spot for the Soviets was U.S. and
Western recognition that they were the last diplomatic lifeline to Baghdad.
Concern spread, however, that Primakov was "blurring the bottom line"
with Saddam,(50) and indeed, it was reported that Primakov offered Iraq a small
slice of Kuwait were it to withdraw from the rest of the country,(51) though
Primakov denied acting against the spirit of agreements with the United
States.(52)
Shevardnadze, who resigned as Gorbachev's foreign minister in December
1990, later wrote: "[A]s I see it, the special emissaries who traveled to
Baghdad during the crisis to try to talk to Saddam Hussein actually did harm,
since they reinforced the illusion that there were options whereby Iraq could
gain some kind of advantage from its aggression."(53)
In January 1991, with time running out for Gorbachev's opportunity to
defuse Gulf tensions, Lithuanian protesters attacked a television station in
Vilnius. Soviet troops fired into the crowd, killing over a dozen and wounding
scores more, drawing world condemnation. Cheered by hard liners, over 100,000
people took to the streets in Moscow to support the troops. Sending a message to
Gorbachev, the conservatives' support for repression at home was linked to
support for Iraq against the United States. Gorbachev had to walk a very thin
line. He could not use force in the Baltic republics without attracting
international criticism and possibly sanctions. But if he continued to take the
West's side against Iraq, his position in Moscow would be threatened.
Ultimately, he chose the latter option and suffered the political consequences
at home. Prominent Politburo members, many picked by Gorbachev himself, came out
forcefully against him.
After the Allied attack on Iraq began, Vitaly Korotich, the editor of
Ogonoyok, complained: "Gorbachev and Shevardnadze caused this [attack
through their support of the United States]. We support the civilized world. It
is kind of our repentance for the Afghanistans and other things we have
done."(54)
THE
CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE
Observing Gorbachev's diplomatic failure to forestall the attack on Iraq,
use the crisis to advance the Palestinian cause, and his domestic troubles, the
PLO abandoned Gorbachev. It faulted him for allowing mass Soviet emigration to
Israel and for not backing Iraq against the West, despite the fact that he had
brought the PLO to new heights of international acceptance. Throwing his weight
behind Saddam, Arafat once again found himself on the losing side of a Middle
East war. When hard liners launched an ill-fated coup in Moscow in August 1991,
the PLO rejoiced. "Perestroika has fallen in the USSR," exulted the
official PLO Voice of Palestine radio. "Perestroika was an anomaly and the
military leaders who seized power in the USSR understood the lessons of the Gulf
War."(55)
Regardless of this criticism, Soviet plans for the Middle East continued.
To ensure its own participation in the forthcoming international conference on
the Middle East in Madrid, the near-defunct Soviet Union reestablished full
diplomatic relations with Israel. On October 24, 1991, the Soviets announced the
re-opening of the Israeli embassy in Moscow. Just six days later, the Madrid
conference, co-sponsored by the Soviet Union and the United States, began.
Within
two months, however, the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by Russia, led
by Boris Yeltsin. Though he favored the PLO, Yeltsin was far less supportive
than Gorbachev. In addition, he paid much less attention to foreign policy in
general, focusing on guiding Russia through the birth pangs of democracy.
Now lacking a superpower sponsor, among other factors, Arafat reached the
Oslo agreement with Israel On September 13, 1993, Arafat and Israel's Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the accord on the White House lawn. On one hand,
the ceremony's location in Washington, D.C., signaled the primary U.S. role in
the process. But Russia was also present in an honored role as a sponsor,
showing the continued involvement of Moscow in this issue. While the PLO had
been motivated by its own evolution and situation, Soviet-inspired New Thinking
had played a role--both through support and opposition--in leading it to that
result.
For
other MERIA Journal articles of interest regarding Russia's Middle East policy,
see Robert O. Freedman, "Russia and the Middle East: The Primakov Era, MJ
Vol. 2 No. 2 (May 1998) and Robert O. Freedman, "Russian-Iranian Relations
in the 1990s" MJ Vol. 4 No. 2 (June 2000).
NOTES
1)Vadim
Zagladin, "An Arduous But Necessary Path," International Affairs
(September 1988, No.9), p. 35.
2)Alexi
Izyumov and Andrei Kortunov, "The Soviet Union in a Changing World,"
International Affairs, No. 8 (August 1988), p. 55.
3)
Eduard Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom, Translated by Catherine A.
Fitzpatrick, (New York: The Free Press, 1991), p. 109.
4)
Ibid
5)
Igor Reichlin, Rose Brady, David Greising, and Amy Borrus, "Brother, Would
you Lend Moscow a Dime?," Business Week, December 10, 1990.
6)
Stephen F. Cohen and Katrina van den Heuvel, Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with
Gorbachev's Reformers (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989), p. 315.
7)
Ibid, p. 33.
8)
Cited in Dan Oberdorfer, "Reagan and the Russians: Revising History's First
Draft," The Washington Post, September 29, 1991, p. C5.
9)
Mikhail Gorbachev Discussion before the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, Washington, D.C., 5 November 1993.
10)
Shevardnadze, p. xviii.
11)
"The Soviet Union in a Changing World," pp. 52, 46.
12)
Pravda, (Moscow) February 18, 1989. Unless
otherwise stated, all foreign language references derive from the Foreign
Broadcast Information Service.
13)
Izvestiya (Moscow), Text of the Speech of Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze in Cairo, February 24, 1989.
14)
"Peace and Progress," Moscow Radio, Nov. 28, 1989. According to a report of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Institute for World Economic and Political Research cited by Oil & Gas
Journal (December 10, 1990), projections for Soviet oil exports in 1991 showed
the lowest level since the early 1970s.
15)
Shevardnadze, p. 109.
16)
Cited by Mark Train, "U.S. Unmoved by Soviets' PLO Bid," The Guardian,
Apr. 12, 1988.
17)
The New York Times, June 10, 1988.
18)
The Guardian, Aug. 3, 1988.
19)
Moscow Television Service, Nov. 15, 1988. Obviously, the Soviet pressure was not
the only cause of the PLO's 1988 decision. For a discussion of the issues
involved, see Barry Rubin, Revolution Until Victory?: The Politics and History
of the PLO, (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1994).
20)
Krasnaya Zvedzda (Moscow), Nov. 29, 1988
21)
TASS International Service (Moscow), Dec. 14, 1988.
22)
Ibid., Jan. 10, 1989.
23)
Ibid.
24)
Georgiy Arbatov, "Perestroika, Glasnost and Soviet-American
Relations," a paper delivered at the "Miami - Moscow Dialogue,"
Miami, Florida, May 27, 1990.
25)
Interview with Genrikh A. Borovik, Miami, Fla., May 27, 1990.
26)
Izvestiya (Moscow), Apr. 30, 1989.
27)
TASS, Nov. 15, 1989.
28)
Radio Moscow International Service, Jan. 30, 1990.
29)
The New York Times, May 8, 1989; "Peace and Progress," May 12,1989.
30)
Peace and Progress, May 12, 1989.
31)
Yedi'ot Aharonot (Tel Aviv), Mar. 19, 1989.
32)
Argumenty I Fakty (Moscow), Nov. 18-24, 1989.
33)
Clyde R. Mark, "Israel: U.S. Loan Guarantees for Settling Immigrants,"
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Nov. 22, 1996, pp. 1-2.
In May 2000, the one millionth Russian Jewish emigre, greeted by Prime
Minister Ehud Barak, landed in Israel.
34)
Clandestine Al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio, Feb. 3, 1990.
35)
Izvestiya, Mar. 9, 1990.
36)
Al-Anba (Kuwait), Apr. 20, 1990.
37)
"Who will Stop Saddam," The Economist, August 4, 1990.
38)
Cited by John-Thor Dahlburg, "Soviets Hurl Harsh Words at an Ex-Ally,"
Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1990.
39)
Ibid.
40)
Radio Moscow (Domestic Service), August 30, 1990.
41)
Ibid.
42)
Yevgeniy Primakov, "The War Which Might Not have Been," Pravda
(Moscow), February 27, 1991, p. 10. Other
estimates placed the number of military specialists at 193, accounting for
family members as well.
43)
Cited by Graham N. Thompson, "Moscow in a Quandary," Jane's Defence
Weekly, October 6, 1990, p. 14.
44)
Primakov, p. 9.
45)
Ibid, p. 7.
46)
Interview with Nabil 'Amr, Palestinian Ambassador to the Soviet Union,
Sovetskaya Rossiya (Moscow), September 1, 1990, p. 35.
47)
Cited in "Soviets Push Conference on Mideast," Los Angeles Times,
September 4, 1990.
48)
Vladimir Kavalev, "The Crisis in the Gulf Region, the PLO, and the
Palestine Issue," Radio Moscow International, in Arabic, September 19,
1990.
49)
Primakov, p. 11.
50)
Douglas Stanglin and Louise Lief, "Moscow Moves to the Middle," U.S.
News & World Report, October 22, 1990, p. 16.
51)
"The Fog of Diplomacy," The Economist, October 20, 1990, p. 14.
52)
"Soviet Peace Initiative Afloat," ABC News Nightline Transcript,
February 18, 1991, p. 5.
53)
Shevardnadze, p. 106.
54)
Interview with Vitaly Korotich, NBC News, January 17, 1991.
55)
"Subject: PLO Reaction to Events in the U.S.S.R.," Publication of the
Embassy of Israel in the United States, Aug. 23, 1991.
Gregg
Rickman is the author of
"Swiss Banks and Jewish Souls" (New Brunswick, NJ: Transition, 1999).
He was previously the legislative director for U.S. senators Alfonse D'Amato
(NY) and Peter Fitzgerald (IL).