Russia this week signed a contract to export $4.2 billion of weapons to Iraq — which is of special interest for two reasons.
First, it is the largest arms-export deal since Putin became the effective ruler of Russia in 1999. Second, it marks Russia’s return as a top supplier of weapons to Iraq — a position lost in 2003 with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, after Putin had opposed the liberation of Iraq and tried to help Saddam cling to power.
Nor is Russia’s dramatic return to Iraq confined to the arms bazaar. Russian energy companies are also making a comeback, seeking a share of Iraq’s massive oil reserves while US companies play reluctant debutante.
Oil and gas play a key role in Putin’s strategy for restoring Russia’s position as a major power, if not a superpower as in the days of the Soviet Union. The European Union, China and Japan heavily depend on energy imports from the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf, not to mention Russia itself. By establishing itself as the principal player in that vital region, Russia would have a crucial card to play in any future big-power contest.
To that end, Russia is strengthening ties with the Islamic Republic in Iran and helping the beleaguered Assad regime in Syria.
Westward, Russia has regained much of its lost influence in Ukraine, a vital link in gas transit to European markets. Over the past four years, pro-Russian parties in Ukraine have won control of most levers of power. The pro-West opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, has ended up in prison.
Putin has worked hard these past four years to recapture positions that Russia lost when the Soviet empire disintegrated. Despite occasional hitches, the despotic regime of President Alexander Loukachenko in Belorussia is now effectively in the Russian orbit. (Putin has even proposed a pan-Slavic Union of Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine.)
Southward, Putin invaded Georgia, annexing 20 percent of its territory in the two enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And this month a pro-Moscow coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire linked to the euphemistically labeled “Russian business elite,” won the presidency, replacing the pro-American Mikheil Saakashvili.
South of Georgia, Putin (with Iranian help) has managed to bully tiny Armenia back into the fold. He is now raising pressure on Azerbaijan, which (thanks to links with Turkey) still pursues a pro-West policy.
Moscow is also making a comeback in Central Asia. Last month, the Russian army orchestrated a series of military exercises with units from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Russia has held similar exercises with China and Kazakhstan, ostensibly as part of a counterinsurgency strategy.
Everywhere, Russian advances have been facilitated by what is perceived in the region as a strategic retreat by the United States under President Obama.
Ukraine and Georgia have all but abandoned their efforts to join the European Union and/or NATO. The Central Asian republics have frozen joint projects with NATO that date to the 1990s.
And Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have terminated accords that let the US use facilities there to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan — increasing American dependence on problematic routes through Russia and Pakistan.
The perceived “American retreat” started with the Obama administration’s rather comical “reset” offer in 2009. Criticizing President George W. Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy,” the Obama administration abandoned the missile-defense project slated to be sited in Poland and the Czech Republic. Putin said he appreciated the move — but offered no concessions in return.
Instead, he saw it as a signal to intensify Russian efforts to force the United States out of positions gained in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia since the end of the Cold War.
In the years since, signs of an American retreat have multiplied. In Iraq, Obama gave the impression that his sole wish was to walk away and shut the door behind him. Much of the influence that the US had gained by liberating Iraq and fighting to help it create a new political system has evaporated.
Intent on depicting Iraq as a nightmare that is best forgotten, Obama has even excluded Iraq from Arab-American efforts to reshape the region in the wake of the Arab Spring upheavals.
Putin is no doubt watching the US presidential campaign with keen interest. A second Obama term would offer the Russian strongman four more years to complete his grand imperial design to force Russia’s near and far neighbors into line by bribing, bullying and, when necessary, invading them.