Russia redux, at Syrian expense

This morning’s breakfast discussion at the Atlantic Council of prospects for a political settlement in Syria focused mainly on whether the US/Russia agreement on chemical weapons could be expanded to broader issues, and on Russia’s role in both the political negotiations and in supporting the Asad regime.  With Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Damon Wilson moderating, former US Syria negotiator Fred Hof, former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson tried to find a way forward. 

Describing the situation on the ground as appalling, Hof suggested Syria is headed for state failure and terrorist safe haven.  While the regime is consolidating its position in the west, Kurds are dominating the north and east while the center and south are in chaos.  The regime war on civilian populations, attenuated in late August and early September after the chemical weapons incident, has resumed.  Islamist fighters and organizations are leaving the Coalition (Etilaf) in favor of joining the jihadists.

Prospects are dim for a political solution.  The Geneva 1 agreement calls for a transitional governing body with full executive powers.  But the regime is refusing to dicuss the political status of President Asad, who would have to surrender all governing authority.  Etilaf will be unable to attend a followup conference (Geneva 2) while regime attacks on the civilian population continue.  What has to happen is for the US to stop the marginalization of non-Islamist Syrian nationalists and help the Syrians form a broad-based negotiating team.  Russia needs to convince Asad not only to end the shelling of civilians but also to go to a Geneva 2 negotiation that will initiate a political transition away from his rule.

Noting that the Syrian crisis is destroying the principle of Responsibility to Protect, Lord Robertson thinks the chemical weapons agreement represents a step in the right direction because for the first time Russia has accepted some responsibility for what is happening in Syria.  There is a new dynamic in the Security Council that can be expanded to the search for a political solution.  Jihadists are gaining in Syria and will continue to do so if the fighting doesn’t stop.  Fear of jihadists, he said, is what precipitated NATO action in Bosnia.  Turkey has already involved NATO by triggering preventive moves (air defenses mainly) under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty.  More NATO consultations and eventual action may be needed.

Demurring on NATO involvement, Ivanov agreed with Hof’s analysis, noting however that Russia thinks the opposition used chemical weapons and that Asad need not step aside in order to implement Geneva 1.  But Ivanov disagreed on the policy implications.  Russia is against violence, but since the end of the Cold War the international system of governance has ceased to work and we have failed to create new mechanisms.  There is a lack of trust between Moscow and Washington.  There was more trust during the Cold War.  Russia and the US need now to move forward together on chemical weapons in Syria and then turn to other issues.  Russia is ready to help solve all the world’s problems.  All it needs is a real dialogue with the US on international security.

Asad, Ivanov underlined, is not “our guy.”  It is a mistake to think that Moscow controls what he does.  But it is also a mistake to rule out negotiating with Asad.  We made peace in Bosnia with Milosevic, not against him.  Implementing the chemical weapons agreement will not be possible without a political settlement that ends the chaotic situation in Syria.  Russia is not in principle against the use of force or sanctions, but these things can only be done through the Security Council.  Moscow will only be willing to cut off weapons supplies as part of a comprehensive agreement, not as a unilateral step.  Syria already has ample weapons supplies and nothing Russia sends to Syria violates international rules.  Ivanov said advanced air defenses have not been sent, but one member of the audience suggested to me afterwards that accelerating conventional weapons supplies was part of the deal for Syria’s cooperation with the chemical weapons agreement.

Ivanov was clearly less interested in Syria than in Russia’s great power status.  For Moscow, it’s about making itself equal (to Washington) and indispensable, as his Cold War nostalgia evinced.  Russia is reasserting itself, at the expense of Syrians.

PS:  In a note to Fred Hof conveying this post, I wrote:  “It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Russians that being a great power means worrying a bit more about the world and a bit less about your own status in it.”  That puts it rather better than I did in the original.