The Arab world's new leaders keep in mind that the US and some European countries have played an important role in ousting their former authoritarian leaders and they will probably maintain good relations with those Western partners. It is almost impossible to foresee with which countries the people in the Arab Spring countries will want to cooperate, but it is not hard to guess which Western power wants to cooperate with which Arab country.
Saudi Arabia, which was once the West's main partner in the Middle East by helping to establish some kind of balance in favor of Western interests, is no longer able to fulfill this task, and another major Western ally, Israel, is being isolated progressively. Moreover, some EU countries have decided against playing a role in the Middle East for now and wish to concentrate their energy on the Black Sea basin. The list of countries willing to play a role in the new Middle East is more lucid now, and this list is very reminiscent of historical precedents.
In this context, the United Kingdom has begun to interfere more directly in a number of issues, including the Iran crisis. London seems to have decided that this question can't be resolved only by indirect actions. The current diplomatic crisis between London and Tehran is only the first step of a long-term process of escalation. The UK has warned that Israel may hit Iran by the end of this year, denounced the storming of its embassy in Tehran and has called on its European partners to consider stronger action against Iran. It is known that every measure against Iran is also a measure against Russia and that the latter does everything possible to remind all of its position on the matter, from activating a new missile early warning radar system to sending warships to the Mediterranean.
Russia's attitude compels the EU to make some crucial decisions; nevertheless, adopting hard measures against Iran will make it difficult for the EU to preserve good relations with Russia. Of course, when we say the EU, we especially think about its members eager to develop a strategic cooperation with Russia, for example Germany.
The UK's strategic choice is to lock Germany up inside the EU, to attach the latter to the US and to prevent Russia from expanding its sphere of influence in neighboring regions. The problem is that we don't know whether the US believes this is a good plan. The US has tried not to occupy the forefront during the Arab Spring or the Syrian crisis. It hasn't criticized Russia's good relations with Iran openly and has always preferred to skip the EU and establish contacts with European countries on a bilateral basis because the US's main concern right now is China and it hopes that Russia may become the holder of balance in the Sino-American relations. The US needs Russia as a friend and not as an opponent.
However, the recent developments risk making this “friendship” harder to conserve and one even gets the impression that third actors, such as Israel or the UK, are trying to disrupt the US-Russia relationship. The UK's project of attaching Europe once again to the US will probably provoke many frictions within the EU and provoke Russia's further reactions. We can expect a deterioration of the Iran crisis and destabilization in some Arab countries. This unfortunately means more bloodbaths.
