Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, many countries in the Middle East have given the impression of wanting to stay out of a serious new conflict in which, for once, they were not the epicenter. In reality, a month and a half on from the start of this crisis, the hasty hope of escaping it is fading for these countries, as day after day it becomes clear that multiple and worrying repercussions are affecting this fragile region, which has often been sensitive to the political and economic mutations of the contemporary world.

The war raging in Eastern Europe, whose violence never ceases to amaze, risks accelerating the strategic recompositions already underway in the Middle East, disrupting the handling of issues whose resolution was not a foregone conclusion, and above all dangerously increasing the economic and social precariousness of a geographical area marked by instability.

In the days following the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, decisions taken by international organizations in particular provided information on the positioning of Middle Eastern states. On March 2, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the war in Ukraine and calling for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces. At first glance, these seem to confirm Russia's formidable international isolation, indicated by the overwhelming majority adoption of the March 2 resolution in question.

However, while it's true that Russia enjoys little overt support, the official support given to Ukraine is more often than not ambiguous and formal in practice, allowing for the maintenance of a more or less close relationship with Moscow. Added to this is the fact that some of the positions expressed are all the more confused in that they come from states that have little room for decision, due to the economic or political constraints to which they are subject. The aim of this contribution is therefore to go beyond official postures and analyze the underlying motivations behind the many positions expressed.

Few declared supporters of Russia in the Middle East

Syria was one of five countries to oppose the General Assembly resolution of March 2, 2022. To understand this position, it is of course necessary to recall the long-standing ties between Damascus and Moscow, dating back to the Cold War era. Indeed, the Baathist regime saw the invasion of Ukraine as a "correction of history", restoring international equilibrium after the collapse of the USSR. He held the West responsible for the chaos, and said that, in the face of NATO enlargement, Russia was within its rights to act as it did at the time.

Beyond this historical argument, Bashar al-Assad's loyalty to Vladimir Putin can be explained by the latter's decisive support for the former during the civil war that has shaken Syria over the past decade. Without Russian military and material aid, the Damascus regime would probably no longer exist. It is therefore easy to understand why the latter could not but give its unqualified approval to the invasion of Ukraine.

Without expressly consenting to this invasion, several countries with close ties to Russia preferred to abstain on March 2. Apart from Iraq and the Palestinian Authority, these were mainly Iran and Algeria. The Islamic Republic's position stems from the reaction of its Leader, expressed a few days earlier. In calling for an end to the war, but deliberately not mentioning Russia's policy (his name does not even appear in the communiqué), Ali Khamenei explained that Ukraine had been the victim of a US policy of destabilization, and that Western actions were at the root of the conflict.

However, it is clear that Iran, which feels itself surrounded by dangerous neighbors, did not appreciate the Russian invasion of a sovereign country. What's more, the opening of this conflict comes at a bad time for Iran, which was counting on the imminent restoration of the nuclear agreement, likely to enable the embargo against it to be lifted, and thus improve its economic situation.

While Iran's abstention expresses embarrassed support for Russia, Algeria's on the other hand, confirms the importance of the relationship between Algiers and Algiers and Moscow. Admittedly, Algeria did not approve the Russian invasion. but it did, significantly, call the Ukrainian ambassador to order Ukrainian ambassador when he when he posted on his Facebook page his country's call to volunteer his country's call for volunteer fighters on his Facebook page, calling it a violation of the Vienna Convention. Vienna Convention. Algerian leaders have called for an "appeasement of tensions tensions", and are hoping to take advantage of the crisis to increase gas exports to Europe. However, Algeria's moderation, welcomed ostensibly welcomed by Russia (which supplies arms and grain and cereals to this country), probably expresses a potential strategic proximity on the latest developments in West Africa and, more generally, on Russia's growing Russian commitment to the African continent.

When war in Ukraine accelerates strategic realignments in the Gulf

While the majority Middle Eastern countries voted in favor of the March 2 resolution, this vote was far from support for Ukraine. In fact, most most of these countries wanted to stay within the bounds of international law by condemning condemn aggression, but they are not prepared to turn their backs on Russia Russia, let alone impose sanctions. It is particularly striking to observe that the United States' traditional allies in the region, countries and Israel, have matched their support for the resolution with a series of decisions or with a series of decisions or behaviors that indicate that they intend to preserve their relationship with Moscow.

As far as the Gulf states are concerned, it should be remembered that the vote on the March 2 resolution was preceded by an abstention by the Emirates (alongside China and India!), during the UN Security Council vote. This abstention was seen by some as the beginning of a real divorce between the Gulf monarchies and Washington. Added to this is the fact that Saudi Arabia has refused to increase its oil production, helping to keep the price of oil high and benefiting Russia. Behind the ambiguities of the Saudis and their Gulf allies lies their concern at the Biden administration's revival of nuclear talks with Iran, and above all their exasperation at seeing the new American president ignore the recent series of strikes by the Houthis, who celebrated in their own way the seventh anniversary of Saudi intervention in Yemen. One of these strikes hit a fuel depot and caused a huge fire, which disrupted the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Jeddah.

Qatar is the only country in the Gulf not to subscribe to this anti-American resentment, which comes as no surprise when we recall the conflict that pitted it against its neighbors between 2017 and 2021. Even though Volodymyr Zelensky was able to take the floor at the Doha Forum, Qatar confirmed a loyalty to Washington that had already had occasion to manifest itself, during the precipitous American departure from Afghanistan. The Ukrainian crisis thus reveals the new strategic balances that are tending to be structured in the Gulf around two poles: on the one hand, Qatar, which sees itself as one of the new vectors of American foreign policy in the region; on the other, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, increasingly tempted by the authoritarian Eastern trend that Russia and China are opposing to the liberal influence of the West on the international scene.

Israel's embarrassment and Turkey's mediation

Equally surprising is Israel's embarrassed stance on the Ukrainian crisis. Although Naftali Bennett stated on March 2 that "the State of Israel stands by the Ukrainian people", and several members of his government have described the Boutcha massacres as war crimes , the Hebrew state is struggling to draw the consequences of its condemnation of the Russian invasion, and refuses to supply arms to Kiev. This caution undoubtedly stems from tactical military convergences with Moscow in the Middle East: Russia tolerates Israeli strikes against Hezbollah and Iranian positions in Syria. But it may also be the result of divisions in Israeli society over what is currently happening in Ukraine. It should not be forgotten that the Russian-speaking fifth of the Israeli population may have strong sympathies for Moscow. However, there is also a strong inclination among many Israelis to be concerned about the fate of Ukrainian Jews, due to existing family ties (200,000 Ukrainians are said to have a Jewish grandparent enabling them to apply for Israeli nationality) and the memorial dimension they embody.

The latest example of an ambivalent position is that of Turkey, to which we have already devoted two articles in this blog on March 7 and 28. Ankara strongly condemned the invasion of Ukraine, after denouncing Moscow's recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics in Donbass on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities. Yet the Turkish government has refused to implement most of the sanctions imposed by its NATO allies against Russia, while scrupulously applying the Montreux Convention, which empowers it to regulate passage through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (including a ban on crossing the straits for warships from countries bordering the Black Sea that are at war, except when returning to their home ports).

Since then, Turkey has been using its multiple relations (Ukraine, Russia, NATO) to play the mediation card, adopting a stance similar to the one it adopted during the Afghan crisis in the autumn. Ankara believes that these steps may enable it to breathe new life into its relationship with the EU and NATO, even as several difficult issues continue to trouble its relationship with Washington, most notably the S-400 air defense missiles recently purchased from Russia. The two Russian-Ukrainian meetings held on Turkish soil so far have yielded little in the way of results, but Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not despairing of bringing Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky together in Istanbul in person, thinking of the benefits he could reap domestically at a time when the next general elections, scheduled for 2023, are shaping up to be particularly difficult for him.

The discomfort of weakened or divided countries

Alongside the reluctance to give open support to Russia and the caution to affirm solidarity with Ukraine, the positions of many other Middle Eastern states are, in any case, constrained by their own economic or political imperatives. or political imperatives.

Egypt, however, is not far from the ambivalent positions outlined above. By voting in favor of the March 2 resolution, it condemned the invasion of Ukraine, but it is not ready to cut ties with Russia, especially as its relations with its American ally have been very unequal since the Arab Spring. Strategically, moreover, it is sensitive to the distance that its Gulf neighbors (who provide vital financial support) are introducing into their ties with Washington.

But the biggest problem for Cairo is to prevent the Ukrainian crisis from turning into an economic and social catastrophe. The country, which imports half of the food it consumes, is the world's biggest importer of wheat, with 50% coming from Russia and 30% from Ukraine. Almost a third of the Egyptian population lives below the poverty line, and is particularly dependent on basic necessities. Significantly, Egyptians are the world's biggest consumers of bread (400 grams a day), and it is understandable that the Egyptian government has sought to secure its grain stocks and supplies in recent weeks. However, the crisis comes at a time when Ramadan and its festivities are set to trigger a sharp rise in food consumption, and more generally at a time when Egypt is experiencing significant new population growth, which demographer Youssef Courbage has described as "demographic counter-transition".

Lebanon, which has been experiencing a serious economic and social crisis for several years (45% of the Lebanese population now lives below the poverty line), also fears a food shortage, as it is even more dependent than Egypt on the two countries currently at war. In 2021, almost 90% (88.1%) of its wheat imports will come from them (63.9% from Ukraine, 24.2% from Russia). This means that Lebanon will have to tap into more distant markets, at a cost, whereas until now its imports have come almost exclusively from Black Sea countries (in addition to Ukraine and Russia, Romania and Bulgaria). Politically, Lebanon officially voted in favor of the March 2 resolution, but the country is, as we know, divided, and the positions of its communities vary according to their particular alliances and interests. Hezbollah, for example, is close to Iran, while the other communities adopt cautious positions ranging from support for Ukraine to ambivalence dominated by long-standing anti-Americanism.

Nevertheless, everyone is united in regretting the double-standard practised by Westerners who welcome Ukrainian refugees, while leaving the country of the Cedars to deal with a large proportion of the population who have fled war-torn Syria in recent years. The Palestinian Authority, which, unlike Lebanon, abstained from the vote, is also experiencing a double standard for its population, which in this case concerns the unreserved condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine by a large part of the international community, which is also turning a blind eye to the situation of the Palestinians and the failure to implement the decisions taken in their favor by the UN.

Like Lebanon, Iraq (which abstained on March 2) is dependent on the multiple approaches of its communities, notably the Shiites, some (but not all) of whom are close to Iranian positions, and the Kurds, who are strongly supported by the Americans, but who also have long-standing ties with Russia and are, moreover, divided, with one branch leaning towards Turkey and the other towards Iran. In Iraq, the Ukrainian crisis has led to a rise in food prices, but the country is well placed to cope with the looming crisis, thanks to its local agricultural production and, above all, its substantial oil resources. In March 2022, Iraqi oil exports broke a fifty-year record, amounting to "100,563,999 barrels for sales of $11.07 billion (€10.02 billion), the highest revenue since 1972", announced the Iraqi government. However, the war in Ukraine continues to weaken the country economically and socially.

In conclusion, it can be said that while the positions taken by Middle Eastern states on the Ukrainian crisis accelerate understanding of the strategic recompositions underway in this complex region, it also reflects the complexity and fragmentation of existing sub-state games, particularly in weakened or even failed states. However, it seems that the main players in the region, both internally and internationally, are cautiously welcoming the potential repercussions of the war in Ukraine on their own region, and are seeking to neutralize rather than instrumentalize them.

In any case, in the short and medium term, the most serious consequence of the Ukrainian conflict could be economic and food-related, if the governments of the countries most affected are unable to cope with possible shortages or unbearable price rises for populations who were already in a very precarious situation before the crisis.