https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/russia_and_the_new_middle_east_russias_predicaments_both_foreign_and_domestic.html
Russia is beset with predicaments both foreign and domestic.
Three alliances have been formed in the Middle East with which Russia must contend:
Iran and its puppets in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen;
Turkey, Pakistan and Qatar, which support radical Islamic groups, most importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood;
Israel and moderate Arab regimes (Abrahamic Jewish-Arab Alliance).
Russia maintains the balance of power among these three alliances, in order to advance its own interests, exactly as the European powers did during their heyday in the 19th century.
One of her main tasks is ousting the United States from the region and simultaneously putting pressure on Washington in the global geopolitical games. (See addendum below) It is calculating, calibrated and clever realpolitik, contrasting with America’s ignorant, chaotic and inconsistent politics based on ideological, mercantile or personal preferences.
Israel is holding back the ambitions of both Iran and Turkey. This is a good thing from Russia’s point of view. In Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel is allied with the UAE, Egypt and Greece, which are holding back Erdogan. On a different front, Israel is cooperating against Iran and its proxies with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain on all levels.
Russia is absolutely not interested in the victory of either Iran or Turkey. Below we will explain why Moscow sees the success of these states as a direct threat to itself.
The current alliance with the Oriental despots — Turkey and Iran — is not durable. Historically, Moscow’s relations with these countries have fluctuated in the “cold peace” – “hot war” range. We should remember that Moscow has a long and bloody history of relations with both of them, and all the peoples of Eurasia have a good memory.
Turkey
Justice and Development Party of Recep Erdogan is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which spreads its ideology among Muslims in North Caucasus, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The birth rate among the Muslims of Russia significantly exceeds the birth rate of the Slavic population, and in addition to this, gigantic masses of Muslim migrants from Central Asia rush to the Russian megalopolis.
In 2019 Muslim spiritual leader in Russia Mufti Rawil Gaynutdin said that in a decade and a half, up to 30% of Russia’s population will be Muslim. According to Archpriest Dimitri Smirnov, one of the leading figures of the Russian Orthodox Church, “We, as a Russian state, have 30 years left only …. Muslims will live in the European part, and the Chinese in the Asian part.”
The religiousness of Russian Muslims is much higher than that of the Russians themselves. A militant Islam is rapidly infiltrating through the “soft underbelly” of Russia: the Volga region with ancient Russian cities Izhevsk, Cheboksary, Ufa, Penza, Saransk, and, of course, Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, a large scientific and industrial center in the country.
