Fist against Iran. Will there be another big war in the Middle East? Is a new war in the Middle East possible? Will there be a new war in the Middle East?

O. BYCHKOVA: Good evening, this is the “Cover-2” program. As always, we are on air discussing topics that seem to be the most important for foreign weeklies. Today we will talk about whether a war in the Middle East is possible, because this time the news comes from the border between Turkey and Syria - strange exchanges of blows are taking place there. I will immediately introduce the guests - Nordun Hadjioglu, Mazen Abbas and Yevgeny Satanovsky.

Today another message came - Turkish artillery again opened fire, from where the city of Akcekale was fired, where a shell fired from Syria exploded on the Syrian-Turkish border. He ended up in the garden of one of the local agricultural supplies, there were no casualties or injuries, but over the past two days this is the 4th case of a shell hitting Turkish territory from Syrian territory. Let's ask Nordun to explain what this place is.

N.HAJIOGLU: If we are talking about the village of Akcekale, it is locality, in direct proximity, even borders on the checkpoint of the crossing point to Syria, a small settlement, the population of no more than 10 thousand people. Why do these shells get there? - deep into the territory of Syria, about 10 kilometers from the border, according to journalistic information - there are battles between the Syrian authorities and the opposition, and according to the Syrian government, they arrive by accident. The first shell was explained as an accident, an assurance was given that there would be no more accidents, but after several hours, on the same day, in the evening, the second shell also hit the town of Shirna, nearby, and the Turkish artillery also responded with a volley to this incident ... By the way, there are no longer 4, but five cases.

The statement was made a long time ago, after the downed, crashed - I don't know what to call - the F-4 reconnaissance aircraft, it was at the beginning of the summer, 3-4 months have passed, after this incident Turkey announced that in the future it would adequately respond with an apology and notes will no longer consider this issue.

O. BYCHKOVA: Is it by chance, or not by chance? How is this being commented on in Turkey?

N. HAJIOGLU: If it were so accidental, then the Turkish government would certainly not have reacted as it does today - it would not have fired back. First, let's say the following - whose house is a mess? A mess in Syria. If someone drinks 10 bottles of vodka on the top floor and is rowdy, the first thing you do? - call the police, the police will come and ask once - what are you doing? If a pensioner lives under them, he will sit quietly, and if there is an athlete under them, he will rise and give the brawler in the face. This is how the situation can be explained.

O. BYCHKOVA: Evgeny, what confuses you?

E. SATANOVSKY: Since I am not a Syrian or a Turk, nothing bothers me here at all, and whether there will be a war between these two states, or border incidents will cost - this is absolutely not a Russian problem - we are not there, and thank God. The fact that this is, of course, an accident is understandable: serious operations do not start like that, neither the Turkish army, nor the Syrian. And on the other hand, there are professionals in the armies, not only Turkey, but also Syria is pumped up. But continuing the beautiful metaphor of a colleague, I would like to note that when a civil war begins in your country, they pay for it, transfer militants, supply weapons and play one of the most active roles in inciting this very civil war, break through corridors for militants who are concentrated and teach on their territory.

O. BYCHKOVA: The territory of Turkey.

E. SATANOVSKY: Absolutely. At the same time, telling everyone the tales that Turkish foreign policy is a zero problem for neighbors - it has long since been zero, there are already few neighbors with whom Turkey does not have big or small problems. It should not be assumed that this activity, in the final analysis, including maintaining the state of civil war in the border areas, will not be transferred to the territory of the country that supports the militants, including radical Islamists.

It is clear that the emirate of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which play a major role here, perhaps more important than Turkey, are far away. And Turkey is a neighboring state. And it is therefore understandable that there are no battles on the Qatari or Saudi border, and Turkey, unfortunately, pays for Erdogan's policies - innocent people pay.

O. BYCHKOVA: In your opinion, what should be the policy?

E. SATANOVSKY: This is absolutely none of my business - I am not a Turkish voter for the Justice and Development Party, and I don’t vote for them, and I don’t give them any advice.

O. BYCHKOVA: I am not asking you to give advice. I ask how you interpret this policy as an observer.

E. SATANOVSKY: Turkey got up to its neck in the war in Syria as one of its main initiators - from the point of view of an outside observer, that it is surprising that what is happening is happening.

O. BYCHKOVA: Why does she need it?

E. SATANOVSKY: And this should be asked by the leadership in Ankara. Great-power ambitions, a new Ottoman port, the idea that Erdogan is about to become president of a new presidential republic, and he has little time - it's hard cancer... Therefore, we saw a sharp relationship between Turkey and Israel - after the flotilla - a lot of things Turkey has done in Libya. Therefore, a visa-free regime with Libya and Syria, by the way, the conversation about the creation of some "Middle East brotherhood" led by Turkey, ended with the overthrow and Lynch of Gaddafi, after which the trust in Turkey and its policy in Syria is less than zero. Moreover, Syria receives everything from Turkey directly, as one of the three main anti-Syrian players.

At the same time, from my point of view, of course, the incident is accidental, because neither Turkey nor Syria really wants a big war between them. And maybe they will try to avoid it.

N. HAJIOGLU: I categorically disagree with this. Because apart from unfounded statements, I cannot accept these statements of yours.

E. SATANOVSKY: Read the sources, including the places of concentration of militants.

N.HAJIOGLU: I am guided by what I know - what I saw and what I understand. If someone so unfoundedly asserts without catching someone by the ear, I do not accept this.

E. SATANOVSKY: Turkey does not hide it.

N.HAJIOGLU: I have to see it.

E. SATANOVSKY: Then you have to sit on the border with Syria.

N.KHAJIOGLU: But we are talking about something else. You say that Turkey has unleashed this war.

E. SATANOVSKY: No, they were unleashed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

N. HAJIOGLU: It began 19 months ago, when the Syrian authorities, namely, their special services, raised their weapons at an ordinary wedding, three people were killed who spoke out against the regime at this wedding - this is the beginning. Why didn't this happen in Sweden when Breivik killed 70 people?

E. SATANOVSKY: How many did the Turks kill?

O. BYCHKOVA: No, you shouldn't go the other way.

M. ABBAS: Of course, many Russian analysts are very fond of geopolitics and forget that in Syria, not sheep live, but people. Peaceful demonstrators were killed there 19 months ago. Yes, Turkey is to blame - it accepted 100 thousand refugees, and no one helped the Turks to provide for these people. And now we start talking about geopolitical conspiracy and world war, which will be due to the fact that some poor people in Syria tried to get freedom, and Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia intervened in this - all intervened.

We do not see this picture in Russia, for some reason Russian analysts do not see this picture, but always try to accuse the revolution of being terrorists. What is happening is terrorist attacks. They do not see that the Assad regime is trying to provoke - from the very beginning, last May, it sent peaceful, unarmed people towards Israel - 38 of them were killed, and the reaction is understandable: people tried to cross the border. Do you know about this case?

E. SATANOVSKY: But of course.

M. ABBAS: Is this not a provocation by the Syrians? Provocation. When the former minister, in agreement with the head of the Syrian special services, prepared an explosion among Christians and Muslims in order to provoke them into a religious war in Lebanon. This person is arrested, there is even a court that decides on his fate. So it is clear that the regime is trying to organize provocations in order to save itself from the people.

E. SATANOVSKY: The main provocation of the week is the statement of the Al-Arabiya channel, which you represent ...

M. ABBAS: I do not represent the channel, I work as a correspondent.

E. SATANOVSKY: All the more so. The fact that the Turkish pilots, who died after the reconnaissance plane was shot down, were shot by Russian prisoners of war.

M. ABBAS: Nothing of the kind - these documents were presented by the opposition. And what you say was not in this document.

E. SATANOVSKY: Excellent. You can lie indefinitely. Your channel, like Al-Jazeera, is fomenting a civil war.

M. ABBAS: I don’t know where you get this information from and start telling that it’s supposedly true.

E. SATANOVSKY: We know about the anti-Russian activities of the Al-Arabiya channel and that you are playing one of the main provocative roles - absolutely for sure. And about the rigging that both Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are playing in the civil war.

O. BYCHKOVA: Let's not blame either the channels or the journalists. Mazen Abbas is not personally involved in falsifications.

E. SATANOVSKY: Mazen Abbas works on this channel in Russia. This channel made a sensation in Russia last week - the broadcast was heated by questions from journalists and diplomats about the false information that the Russian Foreign Ministry clearly called it that way.

O. BYCHKOVA: It does not seem to me that Mazen Abbas should now be responsible for the truthfulness or falsity of this information.

E. SATANOVSKY: Of course, he will not answer for them, that's for sure. But the question of who is the provocateur here, frankly speaking, is rather meaningless, because the entire Arab Spring - big game on the redistribution of the Middle East and the creation of a caliphate before the big war of the Arabian monarchies with Iran, in which, of course, Syria and Iran's ally and at the same time the Alawites rule there, they are generally heretics from the Salafi point of view, they must be overthrown. It is no coincidence that Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, has declared jihad.

N. HAJIOGLU: He announced it 15 years ago.

E. SATANOVSKY: He announced it after that. Therefore, when you start telling quivering stories about peaceful people ...

N.KHAJIOGLU: And you don't like it.

E. SATANOVSKY: I like objectivity and truth, not lies.

N.HAJIOGLU: If it’s not about peaceful people, then I don’t know what it’s about.

E. SATANOVSKY: In Egypt, they represent a country that has successfully betrayed its president within the framework of what you call a "revolution", and in Russia they are often called "turmoil".

O. BYCHKOVA: They also call it differently in Russia.

M. ABBAS: Russia is against democracy in some Arab country.

E. SATANOVSKY: Yes, for God's sake, cut each other up within the framework of democracy in an Arab country. O. BYCHKOVA: Evgeny, I ask you once again - don't say “cut each other”.

E. SATANOVSKY: Can I say what I want? You don't have to call me, I can get up and leave, but no one will be able to shut me up - neither the Arabs nor the Turks.

O. BYCHKOVA: Let's stick to some rules. We are discussing the situation here. As far as I understand, each of you in this situation is an observer, aware of one side or the other of this story. Therefore, saying “you cut each other” is not very correct.

E. SATANOVSKY: And it seems to me that if they try to take me on a show-off, as they call it in Russia, about why we are against democracy, I repeat once again - democracy in the Arab world is the right of the majority to cut and kill minorities, by doing this in an inhumane way. To lynch the one who ruled the country yesterday and made this country a country.

M. ABBAS: Isn't it racism to judge Arabs in this way?

E. SATANOVSKY: No. Those people who run away from this democracy are also Arabs, many are saved.

M. ABBAS: Tell me, who is running? Do you have more information than me?

E. SATANOVSKY: You have information. Another thing is that you work on a channel where it is not customary to give honest and objective information.

M. ABBAS: The channel is not a party responsibility.

E. SATANOVSKY: Who knows? The salary is paid. A quarter of a million Copts have not fled the country just in the last end of the year?

M. ABBAS: You have been speaking for the last 5 years.

E. SATANOVSKY: I'm talking about the last fall.

M. ABBAS: Your information is completely wrong.

E. SATANOVSKY: Excellent. So we talked. What to expect from an Al Arabiya journalist?

M. ABBAS: From Mr. Satanovsky, the Middle East Institute, Israel's main advocate, what to expect?

O. BYCHKOVA: I beg your pardon. Let's get back to the topic, we will not deal with clarifying it is not clear what. After the broadcast. Let's go back to the topic of Turkey and Syria. Still, what is happening now in this place, Akcekalet is not the place where the refugee camps are located.

N. HAJIOGLU: This is an old settlement in Turkey.

O. BYCHKOVA: It was logical to assume that there are refugee camps from Syria in Turkey, there are many of them, and the people there are different - they are refugees, militants, the military, some kind of special services - a complicated story.

N. HAJIOGLU: No, we are talking about a Turkish village, where there are currently no refugees from Syria. This is a purely old settlement, it is not associated with refugees.

O. BYCHKOVA: Can we guess who might need it? The simplest explanation is that the opposition needs it.

N. HAJIOGLU: I would like to approach this issue in a slightly different way. I would say that the following is evident: in a neighboring country, one way or another, there is a conflict - some call it the government is fighting the opposition, someone calls it an internal civil war. We must proceed from the fact that clashes are taking place in Syria. I am not saying - let Turkey take over and regulate the situation. It's very simple - we sat in the same composition 6 months ago and discussed what would happen, what has changed since that day? Absolutely nothing. What happened? two meetings of the UN Security Council, an international conference in Geneva - again nothing has changed. Well, since you think that Turkey is a country that cannot be trusted to regulate security on the Syrian border, then there is a UN clause that provides for the departure of "blue helmets" to this zone. But even this cannot be accepted by the Security Council, which talk to each other in approximately the same way as Mr. Satanovsky talks to us. What to do in this position? This means that again everything rests on the UN Security Council, which seems to have declared itself responsible for this situation, but on the other hand, it does not fulfill this responsibility. What to do, who will regulate this situation so that Syrian shells do not fall on Turkish territory.

E. SATANOVSKY: The question is who will regulate the situation so that militants are not concentrated on Turkish territory and they are not trained by American and French special services, so that Islamists are not transferred there from Libya.

N.KHAJIOGLU: Again. Suppose a Syrian general ran away - he ran to Turkey, what will you do? Will you rip off the shoulder straps?

E. SATANOVSKY: And you are wrong - a lot has changed. First, Baghdad refused to extend the agreement concluded under Hussein on the possibility of the Turkish army legally, with the permission of the Iraqi side, to act against Kurdish militants in the border regions of Iraq.

N. HAJIOGLU: If we talk about Iraq now ...

E. SATANOVSKY: It happened on the back. Secondly, Iraq is on the verge of a complete break in cooperation with Turkey on Kurdish terrorists. And this is the result of exactly the activity of the Turkish side in the Syrian civil conflict. So a lot happened. And this war, of course, will not be good for anyone - there is no doubt that if the Turkish army strikes Syria seriously, it will probably defeat Syria, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory, including for Turkey.

O. BYCHKOVA: Let's take a break for news and return to the studio.

O. BYCHKOVA: We are continuing the program. We are talking about whether there will be a war in the Middle East. Now we have heard new news from the border of Syria and Turkey - today again there was a retaliatory strike by Turkish artillery against a shell that arrived accidentally or not accidentally from the Syrian side. It is indeed proven that the projectile is arriving from the side of Assad's troops. Anna of the opposition, or do they not have such weapons?

N. HAJIOGLU: I can repeat the statement of the Turkish Foreign Minister made yesterday: "Turkish military experts examined the shell and it was found that it is a D-30 type weapon, which is in service with the Syrian army." This is where the Turkish statement ends. Of course, one can assume that this is a weapon of the Syrian Ministry of Defense or assume that the opposition has seized this weapon - one can even assume that. But fact is fact - the shell was fired from a gun belonging to the 6th Syrian army.

O. BYCHKOVA: Yevgeny Satanovsky rightly said that there will be nothing good if a more serious conflict breaks out.

N. HAJIOGLU: I agree. Who would like a war?

O. BYCHKOVA: But if we hypothetically assume that this is still happening, what could be? This moves, for example, the situation with the Syrian civil war off the ground - they have been in a state of unstable equilibrium for several months now, and this can continue for quite a long time.

M. ABBAS: Let's see - if there is a war, who will be a supporter and who will be an opponent of this war. Who really needs this war, and who is against?

O. BYCHKOVA: Who has self-interest.

M. ABBAS: Yes. And it is precisely the geopolitical picture that determines this. I believe that, firstly, of course, Turkey has no interest in fighting against Syria, since the Turks have several problems - not only refugees and soldiers who fled from the army. There are also Kurds, whom the Syrian regime uses very professionally against Turkey, and this began during the time of Assad's father, Bashar. Therefore, neither Turkey nor Jordan is interested, I think that Israel does not support the disorder in the region. American participation in the Syrian problem is only statements, good words, support for human freedom, and that's it. The only one who needs this war is the regime, because it must join forces against some enemy in order to stop the revolutionary process in Syria.

E. SATANOVSKY: I would say that this is a smart move, because to expect that the Assad regime, which is on the brink of survival, needs a war, knowing what the Syrian armed forces are ...

O. BYCHKOVA: That is, for Assad, in fact, a second front is opening?

E. SATANOVSKY: No, this is not a second front. The war with Turkey is not a civil war. And I will try to say more just words - what difference does it make who fired at the territory of Turkey from the point of view of the Turkish military command and from the point of view of the country's political leadership? More than one shell hit the territory of Turkey. Generally speaking, these people are paid to prevent such things from happening - at least it doesn't matter who fired the shell. The area from which this rocket flew should be subjected to the response of the same Turkish artillery, which happened - this is definitely the responsibility of the Turkish Armed Forces, for this they are kept there. Turkey not so long ago, at the beginning of the 20th century, experienced a heavy blow when Western powers tried to dismember it, and most of its modern neighbors, at least the countries of the Arab world, are former Turkish bicycles who were deposited from the Turkish empire and did not become part of Turkish Republic Ataturk. Therefore, people fulfill their duties.

The trouble is, no theory works here. You may not want war - nobody wanted World War I. But the situation may turn out in such a way that you cannot avoid the war, even if it ends fatally for all the belligerents.

In this regard, all the same, since both the Turkish and Syrian leaders perfectly understand the situation and indeed, neither from one side nor the other - despite all the statements and cold war against Syria, in which Turkey is involved, - from my point of view, - a hot war - something incredible must happen and I hope that this will not happen.

M. ABBAS: Do you think that Turkey should itself solve the problems imposed on it by Syria, or is it still an international problem, of the international community?

E. SATANOVSKY: I have a very low opinion of the international community. I think the UN is an empty bunch of bureaucrats who have been eating up abundant salaries and travel allowances for generations, but in no case, including peacekeeping - I closely follow the peacekeepers, I observe almost all missions - nothing useful has been done.

The point is not that Turkey cannot and should not count on the support of the international community in the event of aggression against its territory. And the fact is that even the NATO bloc, which has a corresponding article, at the moment has not decided to use this article and, accordingly, Turkey is currently alone. To assume that she will be alone tomorrow and the day after tomorrow - we are not even talking about the UN, about NATO. Because the Libyan campaign has depleted NATO's reserves, both precision munitions and financially, because Obama has a presidential campaign, he is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and he is not Bush. Turkey was left alone with its problems - this is a fact.

N. HACIOGLU: Then why do you object to Turkey solving its problems?

E. SATANOVSKY: I just said that not only I do not mind, but I perfectly understand the duty.

M. ABBAS: Who will force Assad to peace?

E. SATANOVSKY: If Turkey decides to do this, hardly anyone will condemn it, but this will be the entire responsibility of the Turkish leadership. After all, Turkey is too serious a player in international politics for any condemnation or non-condemnation of Turkey to play any role for the Turkish leadership. When the Qatari emir says something about the time to overthrow the Arab forces of the Syrian regime, we immediately call that Qatar is called a "barking mouse." When and if Turkey makes such a decision - so sorry, one of the great powers of the 19th century. And it is quite possible, one of the great powers of the future, 21-22 centuries - for God's sake.

N. HAJIOGLU: Sorry, we are not talking about the size of the state, we are talking about actions.

E. SATANOVSKY: Great power is not about size.

O. BYCHKOVA: How great is Turkey's willingness to go how far in this story? What are the options?

N. HAJIOGLU: As an amateur, I can answer - she can go as far as the situation forces her.

M. ABBAS: This is generally very difficult for Turkey. Let's think about internal factors. We have Kurds who are fighting - this is not just the opposition, but they receive a lot of support from the Syrian regime, we have Alawite Turks who live on the border - this is also a factor of destruction. And war is itself a factor of destruction. It is not easy to make such a decision. But on the other hand, we saw the first blow from the Syrian regime, when he apologized and said that this would not happen again - but he did it again.

E. SATANOVSKY: Assuming that this is a regime.

M. ABBAS: I suggested a solution - introduce "blue helmets", then there will be no doubt, whose weapon it is or whose shell it is.

E. SATANOVSKY: What are you, when and where are the "blue helmets" ...

M. ABBAS: Then you will be satisfied - whose weapon it is.

E. SATANOVSKY: In no case will I, for the reason that the "blue helmets" are a UN organization, this is one of the most useless and costly fraudulent UN adventures.

O. BYCHKOVA: But it worked in the Balkans.

E. SATANOVSKY: It didn't work. It depended very much on whose contingent was.

O. BYCHKOVA: Nevertheless, they got up between.

E. SATANOVSKY: If we take on average - who got up and who did not get up, and what was the role when the “blue helmets” were removed from the path of the columns that went to genocide - there was a lot of that. In southern Lebanon, the situation is absolutely ruined, and in many places. Therefore, no "blue helmets" - paint whoever you want - in this case will not play any role. The Turkish army is definitely one of the most professional in the world. And if its leadership takes the appropriate decision, agreed, or politically gives the appropriate order, there will be a war. Will not accept - there will be no war. Inshallah.

O. BYCHKOVA: We see that in this situation the helplessness and incapacity of international institutions is very clearly manifested.

M. ABBAS: I am already beginning to think that this position is beneficial to everyone.

N.KHAJIOGLU: Of course. Because nobody wants to take the first step.

M. ABBAS: I believe that I am a peace-loving person and believed that the international community thinks about peace more than about war.

E. SATANOVSKY: It doesn't think about anything at all.

M. ABBAS: But the situation shows that they are thinking more about the war.

O. BYCHKOVA: Or the international community, like the Security Council and the UN, and all their structures - they, perhaps, think about peace more than about war, but have simply exhausted their capabilities?

M. ABBAS: Then let them hand over their mandate and say: we can no longer cope with this matter.

E. SATANOVSKY: They have no mandate and never had.

M. ABBAS: I am speaking in general.

O. BYCHKOVA: Nobody can influence the situation in Syria. And before that, we observed Libya and Iraq.

N. HAJIOGLU: Proceeding from the fact that the regime is interested in provoking a war with Turkey, because the Divan party, which sits and looks at this, will naturally support it, and it creates a very serious front and this will be its natural support - if the regime's allies will put pressure on him so that he does not go on such an adventure, then there will be no war.

O. BYCHKOVA: But this is the ultimate suicide for him.

N.KHAJIOGLU: There was such pressure from the Russian Foreign Ministry - when there was the first bombing. But whether the allies will be able to continue further is the main question.

E. SATANOVSKY: Russia is not an ally of the Assad regime, it is a party that has its own point of view on what is happening in Syria.

O. BYCHKOVA: Unselfish, unsubstantiated.

E. SATANOVSKY: Unselfish or not, this is a question for Vladimir Vladimirovich and Dmitry Anatolyevich. The fact is that Assad's ally is undoubtedly Iran and is actively showing itself in this capacity. There are no Soviet servicemen there today, unlike all previous wars in Syria with its neighbors.

O. BYCHKOVA: Thank God.

E. SATANOVSKY: And as such, the fact that the Russian position after Libya does not coincide and does not coincide either with the position of NATO, or the West in general, or with the position of the Arabian monarchs, is clear even to a hedgehog. Therefore, about the allies - this is to Iran. But he is also a neighbor of Turkey, and an important neighbor, and if he makes an important decision, then maybe Assad will listen. But in any case, the logic of the regime's survival for Assad will be the main one. He understands perfectly well that the fall of the regime means the physical elimination of him, his family, and a significant part of the Alawites, that this country will no longer exist and that all sorts of tales about democracy in the Arab world are good in the West, but they do not work even in Russia for the locals, but even more so in Syria.

M. ABBAS: It seems to you there.

E. SATANOVSKY: It seems to me that there is a civil war? You mean those bandits from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Al-Qaeda ...

M. ABBAS: Let's agree - they fought against Israel in the south of Lebanon. Were there mercenaries too?

E. SATANOVSKY: I call the volunteers bandits. In Afghanistan, I also called them bandits - your Arab bandits from all over the world, I called them in Chechnya and call them bandits. And for you they are volunteers.

M. ABBAS: Afghanistan and Chechnya are foreign lands, and there is Arab solidarity in the Arab world. If you don't know this, that's a different problem.

E. SATANOVSKY: Yes, go and hang yourself with your Arab solidarity together.

O. BYCHKOVA: You shouldn't, Evgeny.

E. SATANOVSKY: Yes, as it is. Because Arab solidarity cost ...

M. ABBAS: I just keep quiet.

E. SATANOVSKY: I'll tell you - you are fighting with us from Afghanistan with your Arab solidarity.

O. BYCHKOVA: Abbas is not at war with you.

M. ABBAS: Don't scare me.

E. SATANOVSKY: Who scares you? Look at yourself in the mirror.

M. ABBAS: Don't say that. The Arabs who fought in Afghanistan are not Arabs who live in Arab countries. And, by the way, a Russian citizen, a Chechen, also fought in Syria - he was recently buried. So let's not make honey and fish porridge.

O. BYCHKOVA: We will proceed from the fact that there are bandits and not bandits - people who have different motivations. They write to you here: "You support the Damascus butcher" - let's not discuss in such terms. Funny.

E. SATANOVSKY: If I supported, I would be at the front. But in this case, I support the Westphalian system together with Russia, which says that there is a country, a state, on its territory, with its own terrorists, a civil war. The state is being sorted out. And when solidarity begins there. We also had it in the Civil War - either Bela Kun came in, slaughtered a lot of people in the Crimea, or other volunteers.

O. BYCHKOVA: I see. But the attitude towards these people, terrorists or non-terrorists, does not negate their existence and the fact that other people have to deal with it. One issue was left without proper clarification - Iran and Syria, Iran and Turkey. What is Iran's interest in this situation?

N. HAJIOGLU: It has long been known that Iran and Syria are one tandem in the Middle East, which, at least, is putting pressure on our Israeli factor in the region. If they are separated, then, of course, Iran's position around Israel will weaken. Therefore, it is believed - at least the majority of observers believe that the door to Tehran opens from Damascus.

M. ABBAS: We have a very serious alliance - Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Hezbollah. Moreover, Baghdad two years ago, before the revolution in Syria, complained to the UN about the fact that Syrian terrorists get to it. Now he has changed his position. And this is very much connected with the national interests of Iran. Iran supports the Assad regime because they have their own interests in the region. Hezbollah is a Lebanese but mostly Persian party. I witnessed how this party was born in Lebanon. So this alliance is Iran's main stick to defend its interests in the region. And before the Arab Spring, we had a regional player, Iran, Turkey and Israel. And there is a conflict between them - to defend their interests in the Arab region, when the owners of the region have no place in this conflict.

E. SATANOVSKY: Does Israel have an interest in the Arab region?

M. ABBAS: Of course. They live right in the region.

E. SATANOVSKY: Thank God, they do not live directly in the region, but on the sidelines.

M. ABBAS: In the center of the region. Therefore, it is natural that this alliance is Iran's main stick to defend its interests in the region.

N. HAJIOGLU: Still, I prefer to dwell on Syria, while not confusing it with Iran, although many are trying to do this. Whether they have common interests or not - on this moment the security interests of the territory - of sovereign states. Any sovereign state has the right to respond, respond and ensure the safety of its population. Here's what I would say on our topic.

O. BYCHKOVA: Because there are 100 thousand refugees now?

N.HAJIOGLU: Several months ago I raised this issue as a question of the future prospects of a huge crisis moment. Then there were 10-15 thousand of these refugees. Today, there are already 100 thousand of them in Turkish territory alone, not counting other neighboring states with Syria.

O. BYCHKOVA: Several times journalists came to the studio who traveled to the border with Syria, to refugee camps, where there are different people with different tasks and functions. And there really is gradually getting the impression that a new hearth is ripening in the places of the camps, it is not clear why. Because these are people who cross the border several times back and forth, who penetrate into Turkey, want to stay there.

N. HAJIOGLU: There is a simple way - if Turkey were a state that is extremely selfish about the problem of Syria, it would have deployed an outfit of submachine gunners, and let at least one refugee try to penetrate the Turkish side - it could have done that.

E. SATANOVSKY: Close the border with Kurdistan Turkey. Of course it cannot. Therefore, if Turkey did not actively support the Syrian Free Army, other opposition groups would not actually participate, without a declaration, in the civil war.

M. ABBAS: You are again about your own. They pulled out their old record.

O. BYCHKOVA: Is Turkey really interested in a mess?

E. SATANOVSKY: She may not be interested in anything - she participates as a rear in the organization of the civil war and the operation to overthrow Assad.

O. BYCHKOVA: To - what?

E. SATANOVSKY: This is a question for Erdogan. Therefore, it would be strange if the fighting in the border zone bypasses Turkish territory. Whoever throws a stone at a neighbor's house must always wait for an answer. This is where it happens. There is no big war yet. Whether it will be - is unlikely, but in principle it cannot be ruled out.

O. BYCHKOVA: How long will this story and confrontation last in Syria, which will end either with the victory or defeat of Assad?

E. SATANOVSKY: In Lebanon, it lasts for tens of years. The civil war in Syria is reaching an intercommunal level and we will have just such a Lebanon - a massacre of all against all, the size of Syria. Will Syria be against Assad? big question... There were 25 putsches before his father seized power. And in the 30s it was just a few states.

M. ABBAS: Whether there will be a war, it's hard to guess. The situation is very difficult. But when this is all over, nothing terrible will happen - there will be 25 million Syrians, we finish with them, and then nothing will happen in Syria - Assad is left alone. Therefore, of course not - the situation is difficult, everything continues, and until the opposition is united, until there is a concrete center of opposition, military and political, Assad, of course, will continue to shoot, kill and arrest.

E. SATANOVSKY: While he is winning his civil war.

M. ABBAS: It only seems.

O. BYCHKOVA: Nobody wins.

M. ABBAS: Assad has already lost a lot. Assad can no longer continue to be president - after so many killed.

E. SATANOVSKY: The Syrians will decide this.

M. ABBAS: I am half Syrian, so I have half the voice.

E. SATANOVSKY: Poor Syria.

O. BYCHKOVA: Nerdun, you know better.

N. HAJIOGLU: Nothing of the kind. War is a terrible and complicit affair, where politics, different countries and much more. The fact that I am from Turkey does not allow me to think that I can predict with certainty whether there will be a war or not. This war is not profitable for Turkey. It is beneficial for Turkey to end the conflict in Syria faster and, apparently, Turkey is in favor of resolving the situation in Syria.

O. BYCHKOVA: Thank you very much.

Will not leave unanswered the actions of Israel, and this, in turn, can lead to a full-scale conflict in the Middle East. What can the complication of the situation in the region lead to, says Mikhail Khodarenok, a military observer for Gazeta.Ru.

In the early morning of May 10, Israeli Air Force planes launched a series of attacks on targets of Iranian Al-Quds units in Syria.

Al-Quds is a special military unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is an elite military-political formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These formations take part in interaction with units and formations of the armed forces of Syria in the conflict on the territory of this republic.

The day before, Al-Quds units located on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights launched about 20 missiles into Israel.

Iranian intelligence facilities, checkpoints and observation points in the buffer zone, headquarters and command posts of formations, a military camp north of Damascus, subunits and units of logistic support, warehouses with material means of formations fell under rocket attacks and bomb attacks by the Israeli Air Force. " Al-Quds "at the international airport of Damascus. In addition, Israeli aviation attacked the launchers of Iranian armed formations, from which ground-to-ground missiles were launched into Israel the day before.

According to the Russian military department, 28 F-15 and F-16 aircraft were involved in the Israeli Air Force missile and air strikes, which fired about 60 air-to-surface missiles at various regions of Syria. Also, more than 10 tactical surface-to-surface missiles were fired from Israel.

“The locations of the Iranian armed formations, as well as the positions of the air defense systems of the Syrian army in the Damascus region and in southern Syria, were attacked. In the course of repelling the Israeli attack by Syrian air defense combat crews, more than half of the missiles were shot down, ”the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the air force suffered no losses during the strike and all combat aircraft returned to the departure airfields. In addition, Israel informed Russia before launching missile and air strikes. Between the armed forces of Israel and Russian Federation Since 2015, a coordination mechanism has been established to prevent collisions in Syria.

The prospect of conflict is getting closer

And although Israel said that Tel Aviv is not interested in further escalation of the conflict with Iran, it is not at all a fact that Tehran is of the same opinion.

It is quite possible that the mutual exchange of missile strikes will continue in the very near future and the situation may, in principle, get out of control and lead to a full-scale conflict in the Middle East with the involvement of all types of armed forces and combat arms of the opposing sides.

“In the meantime, Iran and Israel are exchanging strikes on the territory of a third country,” Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Arbatov explained to Gazeta.Ru. - This is not the first time. But the escalation of hostilities is obvious. "

According to the Russian politician, “Israel may ultimately strike at Iran, in particular, at its nuclear infrastructure facilities, of which there are about two dozen. For more, Israel has no strength. It cannot hit the entire Iranian air defense system and its military installations. But the nuclear infrastructure, where there are relatively few facilities, Israel can strike.

"In this case, the fourth big war will be unleashed in the Middle East, in which a zone will arise, which I have repeatedly warned about before," Academician Alexei Arbatov believes.

The interlocutor of Gazeta.Ru believes that if the following conflict zones - Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and, of course, Israel - merge into one, then an unprecedented situation will arise, which has never happened in the Middle East before - the entire region will be engulfed in war, which has both nuclear weapons and an atomic industry.

Coping with this, according to Alexei Arbatov, will be extremely difficult.

"And even worse," Arbatov emphasizes, "given Moscow's military presence in the region and Russia's close ties with some of the belligerents, the threat of a direct armed clash between Russia and the United States, which has already been avoided twice, is growing exponentially." ...

USA pushes Iran and Israel

The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to ensure the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program may have an extremely detrimental effect on the military-political situation in the Middle East. In this case, Tehran, without any doubt, will resume its military nuclear program (the question of whether Iran in principle stopped working on the creation of a national nuclear weapon remains open for the time being).

Therefore, the mutual exchange of nuclear strikes in the very near future between Israel and Iran is not at all completely divorced from life fantasies. Tehran has the necessary delivery systems (tactical and operational-tactical ground-to-ground missiles); the issue of equipping them with special combat units for Iran is not a technically insurmountable task. In addition, the fact that Israel has its own nuclear weapons is unusually spurring on Tehran in shaping its nuclear program.

The question arises - who is most contributing to such an extremely unfavorable development of events at the present time? The answer is obvious - the United States and its closest allies. It is these states that have done the most in recent years for possible violations of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.

The recent historical defeat of Iraq and Libya, the execution of the leaders of these countries, convinced the leaders of many states in the Middle East, as well as in Asia and Far East that the only possible way to preserve state sovereignty and national security- possession of weapons of mass destruction.

For the superiority of the United States and its allies over any potential adversaries (and even their possible coalitions) in conventional weapons is so high today that a small state in terms of size and military capabilities has no chance of resisting in the event of a conflict with Washington.

With the forces of the Air Force alone, the Pentagon is capable of crushing the armed forces of such countries in less than two weeks without the slightest chance of success on the part of the latter.

Finally, a more than convincing example in this regard was provided by the leader of North Korea, Kim Chem-un. He clearly demonstrated that only the possession of nuclear weapons and the adamant determination to use them are the most effective way to preserve state sovereignty and national independence. Only in this case does the United States agree to negotiations and does not want to get involved in an armed conflict with extremely unclear consequences for them.

There is no doubt for a second that this example of the DPRK is more than convincing for the Iranian leaders, especially since recently Washington has repeatedly threatened Tehran with bombings and war to a victorious end.

If weapons of mass destruction are used in the Near and Middle East, they can be extremely negative for the limited contingent of the Russian Armed Forces deployed in Syria. In this case, even if they are not a party to the conflict, the personnel of the Russian group may be exposed to the damaging factors of weapons of mass destruction.

Therefore, one of the most important tasks of all actors in this region is to prevent a possible escalation of the armed conflict between Iran and Israel and return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to ensure the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.

Otherwise, the development of events in the Near and Middle East may take on an absolutely uncontrollable character.

In Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah.

Washington's plan to expel Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has failed. Now Lebanon appears to be in the crosshair due to increased tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, as was the case during the 2006 war. There is also the likelihood that a new attack on Syria from Washington will lead to an increase in US occupation forces under the guise of fighting ISIS and other US-backed terrorist groups. Various reports indicate that the American military contingent will grow to about 2,000 soldiers, despite the victory over ISIS. Why is Washington staying in Syria? Will he make another attempt to overthrow the President of Syria? Probably yes. If we add to this the ongoing threats of the Trump government against Iran, then new war in the Middle East is more than likely.

The main current goal of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States is to destabilize Lebanon and try to destroy Hezbollah before a new attack on Syria to overthrow Assad. Before declaring war on Iran, they must neutralize its allies: Hezbollah and Syria, which are now very strong. The Israeli government knows it cannot defeat Hezbollah without sacrificing its soldiers and civilians. Israel needs the US military to further support its plans. Israel and the United States can continue to support ISIS and other terrorist groups to start a new civil war in Lebanon through terrorist provocations. Will Hezbollah and the Lebanese army be able to prevent terrorist groups from invading their territory? So far, they have managed to defeat ISIS on the Lebanese-Syrian border, and are likely to cope with a new American terrorist attack on Lebanon. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who temporarily left office when he was arrested in the Saudi kingdom and then resigned his resignation, is showing the beginning of a political crisis. So what's next?

The Curse: Lebanese Natural Resources and the Greater Israel Project.

In the event of a destructive war with Lebanon, Israel will, of course, try to seize control of Lebanese natural resources. With Trump's arrival at the White House, Israel expanded Jewish settlements through an unprecedented takeover of Palestinian land and the occupied Syrian Golan. Israel has already seized oil and gas fields and water sources. Lebanon can be a huge bonus. In 2013, Lebanese Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said there were about $ 96 trillion in Lebanon. cubic feet of natural gas and 865 million barrels of offshore oil. The political chaos in Lebanon and the Israeli war with Hezbollah may contribute to the implementation of the "Zionist Plan for the Middle East" described by Israel Shahak, which is to divide Lebanon and other countries of the Middle East:

“3) This is not a new idea, and this is not the first time it appears in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, the fragmentation of all Arab states into small pieces is a recurring theme. This topic is very modestly recorded in the book "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" (1980) by Libya Rokach. Based on the recollections of former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Charett, Rokach examined the documents that are the Zionist plan for Lebanon drawn up in the mid-1950s.

4) The first powerful Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978 was in line with this plan to the smallest detail. The second and more barbaric Israeli invasion of June 6, 1982 followed the same plan for not only Lebanon, but also Syria and Jordan. These incursions ridicule Israeli media claims that they want a strong and independent central government in Lebanon. Rather, they want the Lebanese central government to sign a peace treaty and serve their regional imperialist goals. They expect the same compliance from the governments of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and other Arab countries, as well as from the Palestinian people. But all their plans concern not the Arab world, but the world of Arab fragments, which are ready to submit to Israeli domination. Oded Iinon, in his essay "Strategy for Israel in the 1980s," writes about "far-reaching opportunities, for the first time since 1967," created by "a very turbulent situation around Israel."

Hezbollah's Iranian ally interferes with Israel's expansionist plans, so a new war is being prepared. Israeli ally Saudi Arabia continues to wage an immoral and destructive war in Yemen, maintaining tensions with Iran. Thomas Friedman's article “The Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia,” which praises Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman “for reformism,” writes: "The head of Iran is the new Hitler in the Middle East," says the prince. “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn't work. We do not want the new Iranian Hitler to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East. " Trump's support for the Saudi monarchy, including the sale of billions of dollars in arms, only pushes Saudi Arabia towards aggression in the Middle East, especially against Iran.

Preparations for a new war in Lebanon.

On November 21, Reuters published an article titled "Lebanese Army Commander Warns of Israeli Threat Amid Political Crisis," which says the commander is demanding heightened alert for troops on the southern border due to Israel's aggressive behavior. Specifically, this article says: “The head of the Lebanese army told his soldiers on Tuesday to be very vigilant in preventing unrest during the political turmoil due to the departure of the prime minister, and accused Israel of 'aggressive' actions on the southern border, amid returning to the country and refusing resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri ”. The Army Twitter account quoted the Lebanese Army commander, General Joseph Aoun: “The troops must be prepared to thwart any attempt to use the current situation to foment discord. The exceptional situation that Lebanon is facing requires the highest level of awareness from you. ".

Israel understands that defeat by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army will lead to big problems, so preparation for war will consist in weakening Hezbollah's military capabilities as much as possible, and in attracting the US army, which could invade Lebanon from Syria. As I wrote earlier, a November Reuters article reported how many soldiers the Pentagon could use when invading Syria: “Two US officers, on condition of anonymity, reported that the Pentagon has over 2,000 soldiers in Syria. They said that the command may soon officially announce this figure. It is unlikely that this can be called an increase in the military contingent, but rather a clarification of statistics ".

A war in which there will be no winners.

The New York Council on Foreign Relations published an article on July 30 by neo-conservative warmonger Eliot Abrams, who was Deputy National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush II, under the headline “The Next Israel-Hezbollah Conflict,” recognizing that “In the next war, neither Israel nor Hezbollah will not be victorious. " According to Abrams, "Israel's real military objectives will not correspond to the damage it suffers, this damage will be in line with the strategic assessments expressed by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies in the report" Political and Military Contours of the Next Conflict with Hezbollah, "drawn up by an Israeli politician. Gideon Saara and Israeli Air Force strategist Ron Tyr:

“Israel's goals in a future conflict will be consistent primarily with its desires in this context (for example, preventing a qualitative strengthening of Hezbollah or the deployment of high-quality Iranian air defenses in Syria), but an overview of the basic data reveals several general goals that can be in this context: the next conflict, creating rules for a customary post-conflict situation, containing Hezbollah and other parties, undermining the attractiveness of Hezbollah's military paradigm (using missiles), maintaining Israel's relations with its allies and creating conditions for reducing Iranian involvement in the post-war reconstruction of Lebanon, and enforcing restriction freedom of activity of the Iran-Alawite-Hezbollah axis ”.

The Strategic Assessment indicated what realistic goals Israel could achieve if the conflict went as planned: “There is only a limited range of 'positive' and achievable goals that Israel can hope to achieve from Hezbollah and Lebanon. While the goal of armed conflict is always political, in many contexts it is difficult to find a political goal that is both meaningful and achievable at a reasonable cost, and this is the reason for the main lack of meaning in the military conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. ".

The reason, according to Abrams, is that Israel's victory over Hezbollah is impossible due to the Russian presence in the region: “Since Russia cannot be excluded, about half of the Shiites will remain in Lebanon, and Hezbollah will survive, as will its relationship with Iran. After the war, the best guess would be to rebuild Hezbollah, as happened after 2006. But Hezbollah will not achieve anything positive in such a conflict that will bring enormous devastation to Lebanon. The only possible benefit for her may be only to harm Israel. In a way, this is the only good news. ".

Israeli economy during the war.

An article by David Rosenberg titled "The Next Israeli War: We Haven't Seen Nothing Yet" about the 2014 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, published in the Haaretz newspaper, explains the consequences of the war and its impact on the Israeli economy. Rosenberg notes: “In 2014, the rocket war was not a threat but a spectacle as the Israelis watched Iron Dome rockets shoot down Qassam rockets to their applause. One-zero in favor of the owners ".

However, according to Rosenberg, the next war with Hezbollah will be different and will have a multifaceted impact on the Israeli economy:
“The next war will look different. The approximate number of Hezbollah missiles is 100,000. This is a suspiciously round number, and most likely incorrect, but no one disputes that the Shiite militia is well armed, and more importantly, many missiles have more powerful and accurate warheads than they were in 2006 ... Hezbollah's arsenal includes armed drones and shore-to-sea missiles. For its part, Israel is also well prepared. Iron Dome missiles, which were designed to intercept short-range missiles, have been enhanced with the ability to intercept long-range missiles and ballistic missiles.

But in the event of a salvo launch of missiles, Israeli anti-missile systems will not be able to provide the level of protection that the Israelis are accustomed to. Israeli infrastructure and economic activity vulnerable even to a limited Hezbollah missile attack. Geographically, Israel is a small country with no interior regions. This means that electrical and water objects are concentrated in small areas. More than a quarter of electricity is generated in just two locations. Natural gas is produced from one offshore field and transported through a single gas pipeline. A long missile war will surely stop this business. "

According to Rosenberg, the Israeli economy will fall very quickly:
“In a worst-case scenario, post-war Israel will no longer be seen by global investors and businesses as a safe place to place money and make deals. Imagine a developing country without constant foreign capital inflows, mergers and acquisitions. The prosperous country of the last 11 years will disappear in a few days or weeks ".

Rosenberg is right. For example, during the 2014 conflict, Israel faced economic uncertainty. During this period, the Times of Israel published an article entitled “War oppresses people, the economy; a strong shekel is harmful ”, in which experts told how the economy will feel during a protracted conflict:
“Experts soften pessimism by noting that the Israeli economy has been resilient in the past. If the current conflict is resolved quickly, there will be little cause for concern. On the other hand, the protracted conflict in Gaza could cause investors to worry about stability in the country and cause long-term damage to Israel's reputation and position as a key player in the global economy.

“Our key concerns are the openness of the Israeli economy and our ability to be a key player in global markets,” said Zvi Eckstein, former Deputy Chairman of Bank of Israel and Dean of the School of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “Indeed, there is still a key uncertainty about the end of the conflict. Most predict that we will return to the relatively stable geopolitical situation that was at the beginning of July, if so, I can say that the economy will recover in next year... But if not, the threat to the Israeli economy will be very serious. ”

But that conflict was against a weak adversary - Hamas. The war against Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria will have a more negative impact on Israel's tourism business, which has more than 3 million tourists annually (mainly from the US and Europe). Production in Israel will also drop. Street published interesting article under the headline "How will this war affect the Israeli economy?", which showed what happened to the Israeli economy during the 2014 war:

“The Israeli economy suffers from a drop in productivity with every missile alert that forces citizens to hide in bomb shelters. The economic cost of the war is about $ 2.9 billion, and this war has already destroyed 1.2% of GDP. If silence comes after the ceasefire is declared, the Israeli economy can hold out. History has shown that the Israeli economy grew by 6% before the 2006 war with Lebanon and then slowed to 2.9%. If the third intifada breaks out, Israel's economic costs will become alarming. As the Israeli army employs a large chunk of the labor force, productivity declines and costs rise. The Israel Producers Association believes that this war has already caused $ 240 million in damage. ".

Another war, another tragedy.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States want to finally destroy the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance, and to achieve this goal, Lebanon will have to become another Libya to which instability and chaos have been exported. Only Israel and the United States can benefit from this, if, of course, they can win. The United States will restore its dominance in the Middle East by obtaining its natural resources, especially oil, gas and water. Israel will be able to expand the occupied territories for the "Greater Israel" project. Saudi Arabia will remain a vassal state with more powerful leverage for political pressure on its neighbors.

And if Saudi Arabia is foolish enough to start a war with Iran, the Saudi monarchy will collapse, since Iran is much stronger militarily. The United States maintains its military bases in Syria, which means that it has not given up on overthrowing Assad. Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Trump government (which has abandoned the nuclear treaty with Iran) are counting on permanent conflict. The Israeli economy will collapse if there is a prolonged conflict with Hezbollah. And this will deal a serious blow to Israel. Israel hopes that Hezbollah will be temporarily neutralized until the United States approves another package of military and economic assistance to continue the war. And then there will be the possibility of a new joint attack by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel on Syria. And then it will be possible to declare a blockade on Iran. However, if Russia and China back Iran, this plan will fail. In this case, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel will seriously lose.

Israel's plan to wage aggressive wars with its neighbors in order to seize new lands will cause enormous damage to Israeli citizens, as the economy will be in dire straits, not to mention military action. Lebanon will again be devastated by the Israeli war. For both sides, this will lead to disastrous consequences.

Why the conflict broke out between the Arab monarchies

In the traditionally turbulent region of the Middle East, there is a new sore spot: the Arabian Peninsula. The ongoing diplomatic war on the emirate of Qatar by several countries since early June coincided with the appointment of Mohammed bin Salman as the new Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It is noteworthy that this particular kingdom has long had very tense relations with the Qatari authorities: the confrontation between Doha and Riyadh reached a new stage with the beginning of the "Arab Spring" in 2010. Three years ago, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE even temporarily recalled their ambassadors from the emirate. But the current events are much more serious. Qatar found itself not only in a diplomatic conflict with the Saudis and their allies, but also in an economic blockade.

How far can this confrontation go? Why was such pressure put on the emirate right now? Should we expect an armed intervention in Qatar? About this "MK" talked with the famous writer and publicist, the author of books about Arab rulers Sergei PLEKHANOV.

"Two" hot "Arab guys got together"

Recall that formally, the “last straw” was the appearance on the website of the Qatari news agency (QNA) on May 24, 2017, with fake excerpts from the speech of the head of Qatar, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. According to the publication, he allegedly spoke positively about Israel and Iran (which is already a very strange combination!), And also criticized US President Donald Trump. Later, the QNA management said that the agency's website had been hacked, and the news had nothing to do with reality, but the process had already been launched.

As a result, on June 5, several states at once, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United United Arab Emirates Bahrain and a number of other countries decided to recall their ambassadors from the emirate and sever diplomatic relations with it.

The main reasons were identified as Qatar's ties with various terrorist organizations (and financial support for them), including Al-Qaeda, the so-called Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood (all three movements are banned in Russia and in many other countries) , as well as the spread of "hostile ideology" by local authorities and interference in foreign affairs.

It is worth noting that similar accusations against Qatar have been heard several times before. Therefore, the situation with the fake publication looks exclusively like an excuse that the opponents of the emirate have been waiting for, obviously, for a long time.

The real reason for the aggravation of the conflict, according to Sergei Plekhanov, is the strengthening of the position of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who, by the way, is now one of the youngest rulers in the region: he is only 31 years old.

“In fact, he has now become the protagonist of Saudi politics, and the main reason is in him,” the expert notes. - I suppose the contradictions with another young ruler - Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (he is 37 years old, which is also not very much by the standards of the Middle East) played a role: two "hot" Arab guys came together. Of course, there is also a root cause - the geopolitical rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but it did not appear yesterday and will not disappear tomorrow. In this case, the personal factor exacerbated the situation. "

The character traits of Muhammad bin Salman are no secret to anyone. The British and American press bluntly calls him a “hot head” and a “gambler” (not just an actor, but a risk-averse participant in the process). MBS, as the crown prince is often referred to in the media, has served as defense minister since January 2015, and is credited with actively - albeit indirectly - including Saudi Arabia in the Syrian crisis and in the conflict in Yemen. He is no less ambitious in domestic political issues, actively advocating the restructuring of the kingdom's economy, which at the moment is almost entirely dependent on the situation in the oil market. And few hope that MBS plans to reduce tensions on the peninsula.

“Most likely he will raise rates,” says Sergei Plekhanov. - His figure is interesting for many reasons, and one of them is that among all the leading Saudi princes, he is the only one who did not study abroad. He, let's say, is a product of a purely internal upbringing. What is it in Saudi Arabia? It implies a rather strong influence of the Wahhabi clergy, who play a very serious role in the kingdom. At the same time, he is deprived of that "smoothness", which is usually given by studying in Europe. And, obviously, these traits will play an important role.

In addition, as we understand, the very fact of such a rapid rise, as in the case of MBS, is intoxicating. And all the plans that he voiced, including leaving the oil-dependent economy, are an indicator that, as they say, his hands are itching. This is a dynamic politician - another question is how well thought-out these dynamics are. I do not exclude that we may soon see the abdication of the king - now this is a widespread phenomenon. And if MBS does such a trick, then we will see a 31-year-old king on the throne, which, of course, causes alarm among the surrounding states. After all, this is not only a deep confrontation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom also has a long-standing feud with Oman, which is ruled by 76-year-old Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who has constantly kept the Saudis from all sorts of models. Now he is not in the best condition, he has moved away from big politics, which gives scope for MBS. "

Intervention or local clashes?

Despite the alarming situation, so far the opponents of Qatar - and Saudi Arabia in particular - seem to be in no hurry to translate the crisis into the stage of military intervention. Even the 13-point ultimatum presented to Doha on June 22 was extended by another two days after the expiration of the period - a clear signal that the Saudis and their partners are not yet ready to escalate. It is worth noting that the meeting of the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, which took place on July 5 (after the additional 48 hours had expired for Qatar), ended without sensations: the countries decided to continue boycotting the emirate, but refrained from additional steps.

Nevertheless, the likelihood of hostilities - albeit limited ones - should not be ruled out either. Experience already exists: for example, in 1992, as a result of a shootout on the border of two states, three people were killed.

"It will hardly come to intervention," says Sergei Plekhanov. - But some local border conflicts are possible in order to maintain tension. Otherwise, what is the ultimatum to Qatar for? If it is not accepted, something must happen. "

But is there a real way to avoid escalating the conflict?

In this issue, everything again rests on personal ambitions, the expert believes: “This is not only about SMEs, but also about the alignment of forces within Saudi Arabia. It's no secret that there are a lot of those in the kingdom who are dissatisfied with how he gathered all the powers into his own hands. Among such people, in particular, the sons of King Abdullah, who died on January 23, 2015 - one of them, for example, is still the commander of the National Guard. In addition, do not underestimate the level of informal communication between Saudi princes - we do not know what processes are taking place in their environment. But there is no doubt that the fact that people aged 50-60 are being driven away from power is causing tension in Saudi Arabia. ”

In addition to the internal political processes in the kingdom, which is heading, relatively speaking, the anti-Qatari coalition, one should not forget about the foreign policy conjuncture.

The Qatar crisis was greeted with enthusiasm by US President Donald Trump. Earlier, he himself has repeatedly accused Doha of supporting terrorists and Iran, towards which the American leader has an extremely negative attitude. Nevertheless, Trump's position is by no means the only one in Washington. For example, the head of the US Department of State Rex Tillerson, commenting on the ultimatum put forward to Qatar at the end of June, noted that a number of requirements for the emirate are simply unfulfillable. On other points, the US Secretary of State called on the parties to dialogue.

“Of course, Washington can influence the situation on the Arabian Peninsula,” Sergei Plekhanov is sure. “Don't think that the Saudis will act against the advice of the United States. It is quite possible that the parties will aggravate the situation, demonstrating their readiness for conflict, and then retreat, referring, for example, to what the Americans asked them. "

However, the ultimatum, the recall of the ambassadors and the prospect of local military clashes are not the only threat to Doha. Since the beginning of June, Qatar has also been in an economic blockade, which in the case of the emirate has very grave consequences. Due to unfavorable climatic conditions and a small area Agriculture in this country is practically not developed. More than two-thirds of the food in the emirate came through Saudi Arabia, and, of course, the embargo raised food prices. However, the Iranian authorities announced their readiness to help Qatar - after Doha refused to curtail cooperation with Tehran. Nevertheless, the problem with the shortage of food has not gone away and is unlikely to be solved in the short term.

“In my opinion, the blockade can last for several months,” says Sergei Plekhanov. - Sooner or later, of course, it will be removed. After all, the current aggravation of relations is not the first of its kind. But a number of countries have already taken on the role of mediators - Kuwait, Oman; they earn political capital for themselves by participating in the resolution of regional conflicts. Therefore, the countries opposing Qatar may find themselves in a situation where, on the one hand, the United States asks them to take a step back, on the other, the fraternal Arab countries. And they will have the opportunity to retreat. But before that, as they say, they will wave their fists. "

There is another important factor in the Qatari crisis. Both the emirate and Saudi Arabia are known as active players in the Middle East, in particular, in Syria, where each of the countries has its own interests. “Obviously, for some time, both Qatar and Saudi Arabia will lose interest in the Syrian problem,” the expert suggests. - And, perhaps, it will lead to some peace in Syria. After all, for the Saudis, this country is not as important as Qatar, long time which is a "thorn in the heel" for them. However, the Qatari crisis will not affect the actions of the United States in the Syrian direction: Washington, I believe, on the contrary, will raise rates. "

The article was published in the journal "Contemporary Islam" (May-June 2012, pp. 24-28)

The entry of the world economy in 2008 into the downward wave of the sixth Kondratyev cycle (VI K-cycle) significantly accelerated all economic and political processes, exacerbating them to the limit. In the past, a similar historical phase of development, the world community took place between the two World Wars, when the British systemic cycle of capital accumulation was replaced by the American one, and Great Britain was replaced by a new leader of world economic development - the United States, which at the end of its cycle of accumulation in the context of the globalization process world order. In the course of the current phase of historical development, a new change in the systemic cycle of accumulation will take place, and the American cycle will be replaced by the Asian one, and China will replace the United States as the leader of world economic development.

In the process of transition to the Asian systemic cycle of accumulation, globalization is being replaced by the process of "glocalization" (in the terminology S.Yu. Glazieva) or regionalization of the world economy. And the previously unified global economy with one center of power - the United States, and one reserve currency - the US dollar, will split into several regional alliances with a consumer market of at least 400-500 million people, with its own regional leaders and regional reserve currencies. The intensive formation of these regional unions is already taking place. The formation of the European Union on the basis of the euro is coming to an end, NAFTA is being created: the USA, Canada and Mexico (most likely the UK will join it). China with the ASEAN countries (whose economies are dominated by Chinese huaqiao) have already formed a free trade zone based on the yuan. A union of Latin American countries and the Eurasian Union is being formed (however, it clearly has an insufficient volume of the consumer market, even taking into account all the CIS countries). They will be followed by India, Islamic and African countries, and by 2020 the world community will be several powerful regional alliances capable of resisting the omnipotence of Western TNCs.

Objective preconditions for the war in the Middle East.

As the leader of the Western world, the United States is trying in every possible way to prevent the transition to a new systemic cycle of accumulation, tk. as a result, they will have to significantly reduce the high level of consumption that was achieved in the West during the American cycle. After all, this level is ensured due to the fact that the West is clearly living beyond its means - due to "accumulation through withdrawal", i.e. robbing the population of other countries with the help of unequal trade, when developing countries receive unsecured "candy wrappers" - euros and dollars for real goods. The USA and Europe actually live in debt, without accumulating funds for further development, they live in the present, eating up the future of their descendants. While Asian countries, and, first of all, China, spend up to 40% of their income on accumulation, because they think about their future development, and not only about the growth of momentary consumption. Concern about their future development is the main factor in the inevitability of the transition to the Asian cycle of accumulation.

And American consumption standards will never become a role model for Asian countries, because these are "Samoyed" standards that will inevitably lead to a speedy depletion of the resources of our planet, and they simply have no future. And this is also one of the most important factors why the Asian cycle is replacing the American cycle of accumulation, which has fallen into the civilizational dead end of consumerism. That is why the centers of consumption of the future world order are rapidly moving from Western countries to Asian and other developing countries. By 2020, the number of people who can classify themselves as "middle class" will grow by 2.7 billion people in the world: 98% of this increase will come from developing countries, according to the Goldman Sachs report on consumption in emerging economies. Consumption growth over nine years will grow by $ 10 trillion, by 2020 this figure in developing countries will reach $ 13 trillion and will amount to 43% of the total world level.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that consumption will grow by 10% each year. And the data of structural changes by 2020 in the composition of the "middle class" (with an income of over $ 6,000 per year) is very indicative: its total number worldwide will amount to 3.85 billion people, of which the share of the G-7 countries will decrease to 21%. while the share of the BRICS countries will grow to 44%. And by 2030 " middle class"the world will be 5.2 billion people, of which more than half (52%) will be in the BRICS, and the share of the G-7 countries will fall to 15%. Thus, according to Goldman Sachs, world consumption will shift from developed to developing countries. But the current unipolar world order with the dominant role of the United States and other developed countries is an objective brake on further world development.

Likewise, the outdated Jamaican world financial system based on the US dollar is a brake, which Western countries do not want to change. it provides a free flow of capital from developing countries to developed ones. In the process of the new global crisis starting this year, it is the developing countries, and primarily the BRICS countries, which unite five out of eight future potential leaders of regional unions, should take over the initiative. And since the United States and the EU are the leaders of the American accumulation cycle, and there is no clear leader among the Islamic countries, it is the BRICS countries that will have to formulate the political and economic agenda for a new stage of world development for the next 30-40 years. And first of all, they will face two most important tasks:

1. To develop and form a new world financial system, since the current Jamaican financial system based on the US dollar and free market conversion of all currencies proved its complete failure in the crisis and will collapse in the next 2-3 years.

2. To oppose in every way the attempts of the United States and the West in general to create a situation of "global chaos" in the Middle East and Central Asia, turning it into a new world war.

The Delhi BRICS Summit has already begun to tackle the first task in the right direction by signing an agreement on trade between the BRICS countries in national currencies and on the creation of a single Development Bank. The second crisis of the large K-cycle bearish wave that begins this year will inevitably accelerate this process. But to resist US attempts to unleash a new world war will be much more difficult, because The "big war" is vital for the United States. Without it, the American government will not succeed, not only to bring the US economy out of the depression, but also, most importantly, to force the world community by buying US Treasury bonds, thus paying off the American irrecoverable national debt, the amount of which this year could reach a fantastic figure of 17 trillion dollars.

Even such a "dove" as a Nobel laureate Paul Krugman believes that money should now be spent on the same scale as during the last world war. “What we need now,” he argues, “is the economic equivalent of war. In fact, the Great Depression was canceled out by a program of numerous public spending, better known as“ World War II. ”He stated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although costly, too small to have a stimulating effect on the economy. Paul Krugman recently called for a stunt to invade America from space: then deficits with debt will recede into the background, and the recession will end within a year and a half. And then we will say: oh, we were wrong, there are no aliens. ”By the way, such a trick was played by R. Reagan in the 1980s, and it was called the SDI or Star Wars program. cycle.

Who benefits from the Great War in the Middle East?

But wouldn't it be easier for the American "hawks" not to "play a trick" with an alien attack, but to kindle the fire of war in such a troubled and torn by numerous contradictions region of the world like the Middle East and Central Asia. Moreover, it is located far from the United States itself, but close to the borders of the three main BRICS countries: China, Russia and India. The war near their borders will be a factor hampering their economic development, while for the United States, the supply of weapons to all warring parties will stimulate the American economy. This is exactly what the Americans did in the two World Wars. Neither Europeans, nor Americans, nor other Western countries themselves want to fight, and they have already forgotten how to do it, despite their very high technological level. Most of the Islamic peoples "do not feed with bread", but let them fight.

As for the war, this is indeed the most profitable investment of capital in terms of its growth, providing endless demand: the plane will be shot down, the aircraft carrier will be sunk, the bridge will be bombed, and everything will have to be done AGAIN. But there is very important nuance- each war leads to a sharp increase in the state debt, because both the customer and the consumer here is the state, since it orders and itself consumes military products. Both expanded reproduction and capital growth are provided here by 100%, but a sharp increase in public debt is also ensured. This was the case during the First World War, when Great Britain, which organized it, turned from a net creditor into a net debtor, and during the Second World War, when the US national debt rose to the skies, and during the Vietnam War, and during the "Star Wars". Wars are always a multiple increase in government debt.

But in all cases, before the start of the promotion of the military pyramid, the US had practically no national debt, and now it is simply prohibitive, and increasing it at a military pace would definitely destroy the current American financial pyramid based on the US dollar and the American economy, which has actually lost its industry. ... Great Britain did not manage to get out of financial crisis after the First World War. The same fate awaits the United States if it organizes a war in the Middle East. It is a characteristic fact that during the Libyan events, after a month of bombing Libya, the Europeans ran out of ammunition, and increasing their production meant additional spending of state budgets, which the EU countries have recently been cutting as much as possible due to the prohibitive debt burden. As a result, the Europeans, who carried out the main "bombing" in Libya, turned to the United States for help, and the former US Secretary of Defense R. Gates was indignant that the Europeans were trying to shift their problems onto America. The same problem will arise in the future: where to get money for military spending, when all Western countries have fallen into a debt trap and are pursuing a policy of austerity in budget spending. For them, this is a dead end situation.

But if you set some Islamic countries against others, then you can make money on the supply of weapons to all the belligerent parties, especially since in this region of the world the contradictions are so aggravated and confused that it is difficult to identify possible specific warring parties. The Arabs are opposed to the Persians and Israel, but the Persians are potential allies of the Arabs against Israel, and the Shiites (mostly Persians) are strongly opposed to the Sunnis (Arabs). The largest and most powerful economic and political player in the region, Turkey is set, on the one hand, against Syria and Iran, on the other against Israel, and on the third, against Saudi Arabia and other monarchies of the Persian Gulf, opposing Iran. At the same time, Turkey is fighting the Kurds, who are the basis of the new "democratic" Iraq, and are fighting to create their own independent Kurdish state, while Iraq itself is getting closer and closer to Iran.

A special role in this region is played by the Palestinians, who, together with the Lebanese Hezbollah, are a symbol of the struggle of Islamic countries against Israel, which is fully supported by the United States, while the Palestinians and Hezbollah are supported by Iran. And what position Egypt will take after the Islamists take power there is a big question. On the other hand, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for an armed struggle in Syria, and fighters from al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are already coming from all over the world to Syria and want to turn Syria into a battlefield. In addition, at the turn of the XX-XXI century. Trotskyism exerted and continues to exert a significant influence on some of the American ruling and intellectual strata. He strengthened their orientation towards violent actions on a global scale, but not on the left, like Trotsky's, but for the right. And it is no coincidence that there are so many former Trotskyists among American neocons: there is even a certain evil irony of history in the fact that the main aide of President Obama is Trotsky's great-grandson Axelrod.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton's Deputy for the State Department Robert Blake a year ago, speaking at the J. the region is vital to the United States. The main idea of ​​his report was that here not only the border with China, Russia, Iran and Afghanistan passes, but the future of Eurasia is being determined. And it must be brought under American control to discourage unwanted cooperation between the countries of a strategically important region. Interaction here should be carried out only with the mediation of Washington, and only to the extent that it is in the interests of the United States.

Formation of future models of economic development.

Between the two World Wars, in the previous phase of the Great Shocks (the transition from the British cycle of capital accumulation to the American one), three main development models were formed in the world economy:

A militaristic totalitarian pseudo-market model that developed in fascist Germany, imperial Japan, Italy, Spain and other countries.

Keynesian market model of stimulating consumer demand with the help of the state, which was developed in the United States, and after the Second World War and in other developed countries of the West, which created everywhere the state of "general welfare".

The totalitarian non-market model of directive planning that existed in the USSR and other countries of the socialist camp.

The first model, as a result of the Second World War, crashed. it was a Samoyed model of economic development that was fueled by war, in which demand and consumption were realized through the destruction of everything produced in the crucible of real military battles, and which could not exist without war. The second one existed until a new downward wave of the V K-cycle, which began in the 1970s, and then transformed into a neoliberal model of economic development due to the high adaptability and flexibility of the market economy. The neoliberal model was able to form, in the process of the downward wave of the V K-cycle, the V technological paradigm (TC), based on microprocessor technology, personal computers, the Internet and mobile communications... And V TU, in turn, allowed the United States and other Western countries to bring their economies from the downward to the upward phase of the K-cycle, thus ensuring the viability of the entire Western market model of economic development.

The non-market Soviet model of directive planning existed until the end of the 1980s, when the Western economy, having formed the V TU, was able to move to an upward wave, but the Soviet system, due to the extreme inflexibility of its directive planning model, failed in the 1980s. to form V TU and lost the economic competition to the West. Therefore, the collapse of the socialist camp and its leader, the USSR, was actually due to its technological backwardness. Interesting fact: the previous IV TU, based on an internal combustion engine and conveyor production, began to form during the First World War, and the peak of its formation took place in the 1920s and 1930s. And the Soviet industrialization of the first five-year plans formed the IV TU in the USSR simultaneously with the most advanced countries of the West. That is why the USSR was able to win in the Great Patriotic War, create nuclear weapons and be the first to send a person into space. And in the 1970s. because of high oil prices, the USSR "slept through" the formation of TU V, losing the economic competition to world capitalism.

At present, the world has entered a downward wave of the VI K-cycle and is re-experiencing the same historical period that was between the two World Wars, only at a new, higher turn of historical development. And we are again witnessing the dawn of three basic models of future economic development:

This is the neoliberal model of American "neocons".

Chinese model of flexible and pragmatic combination of plan and market, with strict government control and regulation of the market.

The Islamic model of a traditional society with the determining influence of the religious factor, embodied in the theocratic state.

At the heart of the confrontation between these three models of economic development is an essential difference in attitudes towards the social structure. On the one hand, under the dominance of a traditional, primarily Asian society, which is strong in its traditional ties of communal, caste, religious and other collective forms of self-organization, state and social structures are formed with traditions rooted in centuries and behaving as a collective social individual. ... On the other hand, an atomized and selfish Anglo-Saxon society, mixed with Protestantism, based on a separate individual, not connected by any traditional framework with other individuals like him. The first are demos, i.e. a people that can be controlled only through the structure of its internal self-organization. The second is okhlos, i.e. a crowd that can be manipulated very easily.

At the end of each of the last three centuries, there has been an increase in finance capital, and its powerful financial expansion began. In the process of expansion of financial capital, each time there was a sharp increase in information flows in the conditions of the Western atomized society and the mass consciousness of atomized-aggregated human material. The mass individual lends itself easily to manipulation, and the appearance of the masses on the stage of history and the formation of an unstructured mass consciousness provided financial capital with tremendous opportunities to manipulate the mass consciousness. The one who pays calls the tune.

Recently, the manipulation of public consciousness and the massive fooling of public consciousness has reached simply universal proportions. Some events begin to unfold with the help of transnational media, while others are simply ignored or turned inside out, when black is presented as white, and white as black. Let us recall, for example, the situation around Georgia's attack on North Ossetia, when the Western media showed Georgian "Grads", and said that it was Russian troops shelling defenseless Georgia. The same thing happened around the events in Libya, Syria, etc. Or when stories about opposition demonstrations in Russia were accompanied by TV pictures of Greek pogroms. The next stage of mass duping will be the mass chipping of people, when ordinary citizens will be "sewn" chips under some plausible pretext, with the help of which complete control of their consciousness will become possible.

The Chinese model of a flexible and pragmatic combination of market and plan, perhaps, has the greatest vitality and survivability in the process of further historical development. More than 80 years ago, the outstanding Russian economist Nikolai Kondratyev argued that without planning, stable and crisis-free development is simply impossible. But the plan must be confirmed by the market, and the market element must be strictly limited and regulated by the state in order to avoid the severe and destructive consequences of economic crises, which are generated, first of all, by the lack of control and greed of financial capital. It is this principle that is embedded in the Chinese model of economic development.

Another model of economic development is the Islamic model, which is based on a rigidly structured organization of society, built on the basis of Islamic religious dogmas. In terms of economic development, a particularly important role in this model is played by "Islamic banking", which is the main alternative to Jewish usurious capital. The Chinese model uses the old Western banking system, founded by medieval Jewish capital, only tries to control it more or less tightly.

In "Islamic banking" there is no place for (inherently usurious) bank interest, and banks act as equal partners of real business, being worthy alternative modern western banking system... And that is precisely why his successes and achievements are carefully hushed up, and it is against him, and not against Islam as a religion, that the main blow of Western finance capital is directed. The current crisis of the downward wave of the VI K-cycle will convincingly show the higher efficiency and stability in the conditions of the global crisis of "Islamic banking" in comparison with the Anglo-Saxon system of the old Jewish financial capital, the center of which is the private US FRS and other "independent" Central banks.

<>And here it is of great importance which side Russia will take, which 100 years ago already made a strategic mistake by taking the side of the Entente headed by the British Empire. This error resulted in: First World War, revolution of 1917, collapse Russian Empire and the Civil War. One wrong strategic decision, and a sea of ​​blood and suffering of millions of people - this is the price to pay for the wrongly chosen allies of Russia by Nicholas II. In addition, he himself paid for this mistake at a very high price - with his life and his entire family.

And now the Russian leadership is facing exactly the same dilemma: to support the receding, but still very powerful, dominant center of world economic development in the person of the Anglo-Saxons and Israel, or the rapidly developing new centers of the world economy, in which the future belongs. BRICS, SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union - this is all movement in the right direction. But Russia needs to be definitively determined sooner, and for example, within the SCO it is necessary to include current observers as full members of the SCO: Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, and possibly Syria. And thus, once and for all, discourage Western fans to "play war" the desire to unleash a Great War in an extremely explosive region of the world - in the Middle East and Central Asia. By this act, China and Russia would show the West that this is not its sphere of influence, and that Western countries are not allowed to enter here. Thanks to such a strong political move, it would be possible to prevent the outbreak of a "Great War" in this region of the world. But so far the decisive, firm and sober voice of Russia is not very audible.