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Russian under President Vladimir Putin has established a strong presence in the Middle East. In fact, in 2017, Russian involvement in the regional affairs is more pronounced. Putin has done his utmost to restore Russia's prestige in the region and has been successful to an extent. Russia though for a brief period lost out to the USA, especially in the case of Iraq and Libya but its decisive intervention in Syria has changed the dynamics. If one compares the policies followed by the Soviet Union in the Middle East during the reigns of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev to the present situation some interesting parallels can be drawn. However, it should be noted that the goals and policies pursued by Putin are entirely different. But in comparing the position of Russia in the Middle East under Putin to the Soviet position in the region under Khrushchev and Brezhnev is much stronger.

Since their 1955 arms deal with Egypt, Soviet policymakers have sought to establish the Soviet Union as the dominant power in the Middle East. The main thrust of this strategy has been simply to replace the Western Powers in their former positions of political, military and economic influence within the region. The Soviet leaders have engaged in massive economic aid projects such as the Aswan and Euphrates Dams; they have contributed large amounts of sophisticated military equipment to many of the states of the region; and more recently they have sought to consolidate their influence through long-term ''Friendship and Assistance" treaties such as the ones signed with Egypt in 1971 and Iraq in l1972.

At the time of Nasser's death the Soviet Union had reached the pinnacle of its influence in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. 1 The Russians had acquired air and naval bases in Egypt which greatly enhanced their military position in the eastern Mediterranean vis-a-vis the United States and had obtained port rights in Syria, Yemen, South Yemen, the Sudan, and Iraq, which gave increased Soviet access to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean.

It comes as no surprise that the long-term Soviet goal in the Middle East is to diminish, if not to replace, Western and particularly United States influence. However, at least since the Yom Kippur War, the states and the political forces in the Middle East are subjects and are no longer objects of international politics.

By the end of February 2014, US policy in the Middle East faced very serious challenges. Negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority had reached an impasse, and even the indefatigable efforts of US Secretary of State John Kerry had not succeeded in getting the two sides to sign an agreement or even a framework for an agreement. In the case of Iran, the United States (US) and the other members of the P-5 plus one (UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) had reached an interim agreement in November 2013, to limit Iran's production of enriched uranium in return for a partial lifting of sanctions, but major questions remained as negotiations began on a final agreement. These included Iran's willingness to surrender information about its suspected nuclear weaponization program; whether or not Iran would be allowed to continue to enrich uranium, and if so, how much; and the future of the Arak heavy water plant and the Fordow nuclear facility. In the case of the war in Syria, the US continued to avoid involvement, even as the death toll rose to 150,000. Despite rising calls for US action from the State Department and CIA, President Obama refused to act. His position appeared to be, "I got us out of Iraq, I'm getting us out of Afghanistan, I'm not getting us involved in Syria."