At an early
stage of the war in Syria, an Iraqi official went to see a Nato commander.
“What’s the difference between what is happening in Syria and Libya [where
Muammar Gaddafi had just been overthrown]?” he asked. The reply of the Nato
general was simple and crisp. “Russia is back,” he said.
The rebirth
of Russia as a great power was evident early on 12 February in Munich when the
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei
Lavrov, announced a plan for the delivery of aid to besieged cities in Syria
and a “cessation of hostilities”, to be followed by a more formal ceasefire.
Russia and the US have the power to make things happen or stop happening in
Syria that is not absolute but is greater than anybody else.
Saudi intervention in Syria would risk Russian
wrath
The
announcement was greeted with scepticism by the media and diplomats, who
swiftly pointed to the many holes in the agreement and the many things that
could go wrong. But the doubts may be exaggerated because military and
diplomatic developments in Syria are reinforcing each other. Russian military
intervention means that President Bashar al-Assad is not going to lose the war
and it is difficult to see what Syrian opposition forces alone can do to stop
the Russian-backed Syrian army in coalition with a Shia axis led by Iran.
President Bashar al-Assad says he wants victory but it is unlikely that that
the US and its regional allies will accept total defeat.
The greater
Russian and Iranian involvement in the war is unsurprising. It was clear from
about 2012 that Russia and the Shia axis were not going to let President Bashar
al-Assad be overthrown, and would counter any escalation by Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and the Sunni powers. This happened last year when an offensive by Syrian
non-Islamic State (Isis) rebels led by the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra and
Ahrar al-Sham won a series of military victories in Idlib province in northern
Syria. Their success provoked Russian military intervention on 30 September
which shifted the balance of power in the war in favour of Assad to a degree
that could only be reversed by the direct intervention of the Turkish army.
It is getting
a bit late even for this. On 2 February, the Syrian army, assisted by heavy
Russian airstrikes, cut the road between Aleppo and Turkey. The Russian and
Syrian governments are getting close to sealing off northern Syria from Turkey
in a tacit alliance with the Syrian Kurds who have been advancing from the
east. These are crucial moments of the war as Turkey and Saudi Arabia debate
military intervention.
A striking
feature of the Russian-Syrian-Iranian offensive is the mute response so far of
the US and allies.
Saudi Arabia
and Turkey no longer have the arm lock over Western policy in the war that they
once had, when it was assumed that their Syrian allies and proxies would win
and Assad would go. Not only did this not happen, but the rise
of Isis in 2014 and its sweeping victories in Iraq and Syria showed
that the Syrian war could not be allowed to fester. The hope by Western powers
that the crisis could be contained was destroyed last year by two events: the
flood of migrants from Syria and Iraq making their way to western Europe and
the massacre of 130 people by Isis gunmen and suicide bombers in
Paris on 13 November.
The agreement
in Munich is bad news for Isis. The Western claim that the Russians were
not fighting Isis but focused on eliminating a mysterious “moderate”
opposition, which was said to pose a great threat to Assad, was always
something of a propaganda slogan. In reality, the Russian aircraft attacked all
armed opposition groups threatening Assad. These were primarily al-Nusra and
Ahrar al-Sham in the north-east, Jaish al-Islam close to Damascus and IS
further east.
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