When Politics Allied with Religion: Russia’s New Strategy to Dominate the Middle East under the Pretext of Fighting Terrorism

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical approach to Russia's new policy of alliance with its dominant religion that is embodied in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which Russia has thus far embraced to fight terrorism and extremism in the Middle East and to determine the extent to which religion stands with politics in Russia's foreign policy. Syria is taken as a case study and as an eminent example of Russia's anti-terror front strategy. The main argument of the paper is that Russia's leading role on the anti-terror front in the Middle East is a security-oriented and national identity-founded strategy under the pretext of fighting terrorism, while it looks forward to being a dominant power in regional, then world affairs. It finds that Russia employs the ROC in political terms as a soft power tool for promoting its foreign policy, as a way to achieve its national interests and to guarantee its national security.