ABSTRACT
During the initial stages of the 1990 Gulf crisis, Moscow temporized in supporting US diplomatic initiatives and the accompanying buildup of coalition forces. As Galia Golan of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has noted, Moscow’s moves toward an opening to Israel in 1985–1986 represented a “new direction” in Soviet policy and a deliberate effort by Gorbachev to broaden Soviet options in the Middle East. All Arab states have expressed outrage at the accelerated immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union into Israel, but Moscow continues to insist that Russia will allow free emigration of its citizens. A Soviet-US joint statement in January 1991 indicated that efforts to resolve regional issues would be expanded after the Gulf crisis ended. In a gesture to both Israel and the West, the Soviet Union allowed Jewish emigration to increase dramatically. The decade-long Iran-Iraq War complicated Soviet efforts to establish and maintain good relations with both Tehran and Baghdad.
