A ‘Cold War 2.0’ playing out in the Middle East

The US is facing a “Cold War 2.0” against Russia in places such as Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Syria as President Vladimir Putin’s government tries to establish an external security belt stretching from Iraq to the Mediterranean, a US-based expert told The Jerusalem Post.

 

Such a security belt would pass from Iran to parts of Iraq and Syria, and form a barrier against Sunni Islamists, Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for Analysis of Global Security in Washington, told the Post in an interview on Tuesday.

 

Cohen is in Israel for the Jerusalem Leaders Summit being held in Jerusalem this week, where Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde moderated a session on Tuesday.

 

The security belt would be approximately at a distance of 1000 miles from Russia’s southern border.

 

“Russia is in an alliance with the Shia because they are afraid of the Sunnis,” said Cohen, adding that it is a pragmatic relationship “where each side is using the other.”

 

Asked if Russia’s military intervention in Syria would hamper Israel’s ability to attack by air, Cohen responded that Israel’s reported recent strike against Hezbollah on Friday shows that it maintains its redlines and that it advised the Russians about what they are.

 

Of course, noted Cohen, there is a real risk in Syria that “we could wake up one day with the headline that a Russian jet shot down a US or Israeli plane or vice versa.”

 

However, Russia, the US, and Israel are prepared for such a scenario as they have created emergency lines of communication.

 

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