Russia in Global Affairs

Can Turkey become another Ukraine for Russia? Such speculation would be premature at this point. Today the choice of Turkey as a transit country for the transportation of Russian hydrocarbons to Europe looks strategically sound.

Attempts to solve the Middle Eastern “cube” have continued for decades. Sometimes it seemed that just one final move was needed to achieve the desired harmony of colors and proportions, but no. Yet it is hard to expect a result when several people manipulate the cube simultaneously.

The time must come for the Middle East to witness the dawn of a new era – that of common sense, when all of us finally understand that this long-suffering region can and must be turned from a place of hostility and rivalry into a site for building a new, fairer, and lasting peace. A conflict of civilizations would be the sole alternative to that scenario.

There are two principal scenarios for the development of the situation in the Middle East. The first scenario concerns postwar settlement ? la Versailles, specifically, the division of Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire, in which the lead was taken by external forces. The second scenario, ? la Westphalia, is a protracted and painful process of self-development of a democratic community of nation states.

The tight knot of contradictions surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and Tehran’s policy in general has affected so profound international policies that any attempt to cut it may blow up peace already in the short term, and not only in the Greater Middle East.