Tag: ISIS
Russia in Syria
Anastasia Levchenko of Sputnik International, which thinks Putin at the UN showed Obama who is in charge, asked me some questions the day before yesterday. I replied:
Q: Russia is currently not planning to participate in any military operations on the territory of Syria or other countries, Putin said. “But we are thinking of how to intensify our work both with President [Bashar] al-Assad and our partners in other countries,” Putin said in the interview.
Should this statement calm down Western states, or are they hyping the topic of allegedly possible military presence of Russia in Syria out of political reasons, to have political pressure on Moscow?
A: President Putin is splitting hairs. Installing a major base at Latakia is already a significant military operation. If he means that Russia does not intend to conduct offensive operations, I’ll be surprised if he can keep to that pledge. Extremists will attack the Russian base. How will Moscow react?
Put it this way: if the US had just installed an air base with a couple of thousand personnel in Ukraine to support what it regards as the legitimate Kiev government, would Moscow view that as escalation of the conflict there?
Q: Putin also mentioned that the opinion that the resignation of Bashar Assad would contribute to the fight against the Islamic State extremist group is nothing but “anti-Syrian propaganda.” He recommended Western partners to forward their wishes regarding Assad’s resignation to the Syrian population, who are the ones to decide the future of the country.
Do you agree that it is propaganda, or can Assad’s resignation indeed contribute to the fight against the Islamic State?
A: The Syrian people have been voting with their feet in peaceful demonstrations and with arms against Bashar al Assad for more than four and a half years. The issue for the US is not his resignation, but rather a negotiated political transition in which he loses power. No one in the West talks simply of his resignation. That is a straw man Putin invented.
Q: The Syrian conflict can only be resolved by strengthening existing government institutions, encouraging them to engage in a dialogue with opposition groups and by carrying out political reforms, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated.
In this context, what do you think of the establishment of a coordination structure to fight the Islamic State militants by Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq?
A: I think Iraq can use all the help it can get. If this helps, so be it.
As for Syria, a large part of the non-extremist opposition is not interested in strengthening Bashar al Assad and will fight so long as it sees no clear end of him.
Russia needs to worry a bit more than it has about appearing to align itself in Syria against the majority Sunni population.
Q: In the interview Putin also said he had personally informed the heads of Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia about the establishment of a coordination structure.
Do you think these countries might be interested in joining the structure? Who else? Any Western countries?
Q: I doubt Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will join this coordination structure. They are much more likely to urge in response a strengthened Western Coalition. I understand they are meeting in New York with the US at this very moment.
Then yesterday Umid Niayesh of the Azerbaijani Trend News Agency also asked some questions. I answered:
Q: Russia has decided to play more active role in Syria, sending military equipments and troops to support Syrian government which is also a close ally of Tehran.
How can it affect the balance of power in the Middle East?
A: I don’t think this Russian deployment of a couple of thousand troops and a couple of dozen warplanes affects the balance of power in the Middle East in any significant way. It is intended to shore up Bashar al Assad, whose forces have been weakening and appeared to be unable to stem the advance of insurgents southwest from Idlib towards Latakia and Tartous, where Russia maintains port facilities.
I note the contrast between President Putin’s claim in an interview in the US last weekend that Russia will not conduct military operations in Syria but only support the Syrian government and the widely reported strikes by Russian warplanes against Islamic State targets, which are inconsistent with his statement. It seems to me Russia has put itself on the slippery slope towards much greater involvement in the Syrian war, with significant casualties likely.
Q: Can it lead to formation of a new coalition, with Iran and Russia as its main actors?
A: Iran and Russia have been together in supporting Bashar al Assad for the past four and a half years. Their effort to help him suppress the insurgency has so far failed. Many in the West see the Russian move as competitive with Iran, to beef up Moscow’s influence in Damascus.
Q: How will it affect the regional countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia?
A: Not much. Turkey is mainly concerned with the Kurdish forces on its border and wants to create a protected area in northern Syria, one not controlled by Kurds, to which it can repatriate some refugees. Neither of those concerns is much affected by the Russian deployment. Saudi Arabia has supported the insurgency against Assad and the Western anti-ISIS Coalition. I expect it to keep on doing those things.
Q: May it lead to change of US policy towards the region?
A: I didn’t hear anything in President Obama’s speech yesterday to suggest that. He is clearly willing to talk with Iran and Russia about Syria but we are still a long way from agreement on what to do.
Q: Mohammad Nahavandian, chief of staff of President Hassan Rouhani, has said that further cooperation between the US and Iran on fighting terrorism in the region could be possible if the United States fulfills its commitments in the Iran nuclear deal to lift sanctions. On the other hand Khamenei has emphasized that the two parties’ co-op will never go beyond nuclear issue. What do you think? Is it possible that Tehran and Washington cooperate in regional issues?
A: Sure, it is possible Tehran and Washington may cooperate on regional issues, as they have in the past on Afghanistan. But it is unlikely in Syria because their understanding of Bashar al Assad’s role there is dramatically different. Tehran (and Moscow) see him as essential to fighting ISIS. Washington thinks there will be no end to the insurgency and ISIS so long as he remains in power.
I can’t help but note the apparent contradiction in my remarks about the Russian base, but the questions asked were different. In the first interview, the question was about Putin’s remark minimizing the significance of the base, so I responded emphasizing its significance, in particular for possible Russian casualties. In the second interview, the question was about changing the military balance in the Middle East. The base is a significant escalation in Syria, but it does little to change the overall military balance in the Middle East, where the US and its allies are overwhelmingly dominant in conventional military strength.
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Tatters
American policy in Syria has supported the “moderate” opposition and sought the removal of Bashar al Assad. Four and a half years into the rebellion there, extremists have largely sidelined the moderate opposition in the center of the country. Russia and Iran are doubling down on their support for Bashar al Assad, who is well on towards fulfilling his prophecy “either me or the jihadis.”
Washington has also wanted to protect Syria’s neighbors from its civil war. Efforts to contain the war’s effects have been no more successful than the efforts to win it. With more than 4 million refugees unsettling Syria’s neighbors and 7 million displaced inside the country, it will take decades to restore the region to some semblance of order. The Islamic State has taken over one third of Iraq. The war has embroiled Turkey in renewed conflict with its own Kurds. Lebanon and Jordan hang by threads to a semblance of order. Israel faces extremists just a few miles from the Syrian territory it occupies on the Golan Heights.
Attention in the press is focused on the Pentagon’s failed efforts over the past year to train and equip viable “moderate” forces to fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Few Syrians sign up. They prefer to fight Assad. The vetting process is long and arduous. Of the few who have gone back to Syria, most have ended up dead, captured or intimidated into turning over equipment and weapons to extremists. The rebalancing of the military equation that John Kerry had rightly recognized as necessary to altering the outcome in a direction the US would find agreeable is simply not occurring.
Enter the Russians. Moscow’s deployment of fighting forces, including attack aircraft, to Latakia would not be necessary if the Assad regime were doing well. Moscow’s immediate military goal is to block the advance of opposition forces towards western Syria, where both the heartland of the Alawite population and Russia’s naval base lie. Its bigger purpose is to protect the regime and foil America’s intention of replacing it with something resembling a democracy. Moscow won’t distinguish in its targets between extremists and moderates but will seek to rebalance the military equation in a direction opposite to what Kerry had in mind.
The advancing opposition forces in the center of the country are mostly Sunni extremists, not moderates. Extremists have agreed to a population exchange with Hizbollah that will clear Sunnis from near the strategically important border with Lebanon and Shia from extremist-held areas farther north. Population exchange aids cantonalization: Syria will soon be a patchwork of areas of control: the regime in Damascus and the west, Kurds along much of the northern border with Turkey, relatively moderate opposition in the south and some Damascus suburbs, assorted Islamist extremists in the center and the Islamic State in the center east. Enclaves will be overrun or traded. Confrontation lines will congeal. Stalemate will ensue.
None of this is good news for either Syrians or Americans. But it is not the worst news.
The viability of the patches will depend on two factors: the strength of the military forces that control them and how effectively they are governed. The regime has been protecting and governing the areas it controls well enough that they have attracted a significant inflow of people, including many whose sympathies are with the opposition. The Islamic State governs brutally in the territory it controls, but has lost some in the north to Kurdish forces, who have set up representative governing structures that include Arabs and appear to be functioning relatively well, their lives made easier by the de facto truce between the Kurds and the Assad regime.
The relative moderates have arguably been less effective than the regime, the Islamic State and the Kurds in governing the areas they control. This is important. The war can be lost on the battlefield. But it has to be won in city hall. The local councils that have formed more or less spontaneously in many “liberated” areas are not doing well. Strapped for cash and untended by the opposition Syrian Interim Government, in many areas they are unable to deliver much except political squabbling among themselves. While unquestionably better than nothing, they lack both legitimacy and technical capabilities as well as connections to a broader political framework. Western aid to local councils has sometimes done more harm than good.
The US military effort in Syria is visibly in tatters. But it won’t matter much if the less visible civilian effort conducted in areas controlled by relative moderates doesn’t improve dramatically.
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Is meeting Putin smart?
The White House has let it be known that President Obama will meet with President Putin next week at the United Nations. Is this smart diplomacy, or not?
The arguments against it are strong. Putin has invaded eastern Ukraine. His proxies there are failing to fulfill their commitments to a ceasefire and expelling humanitarian organizations as well as the UN. He is also deploying combat forces to Syria to protect the Alawite heartland along its Mediterranean coast and to protect the Russian port facilities at Tartous. Defiance and escalation do not merit the acceptance a meeting implies. Giving Putin the recognition he craves will only encourage further misbehavior intended to ensure that vital issues cannot be solved without Russian involvement.
The arguments for it are weaker. We need to reiterate the need for Moscow to live up to the September 1 ceasefire agreement in Ukraine. We need to hear directly from Putin what his intentions are in Syria in order to judge whether we can make common cause with him there against the Islamic State. The Ukraine-related sanctions are having an impact. It would be a mistake to leave any stone unturned in the quest for peaceful resolutions in both Ukraine and Syria. Putin is the one pressing for the meeting, which is just a meeting. It does not imply acceptance of Putin’s behavior or a great power role for Russia.
But there is another consideration: what is President Obama getting in exchange for this meeting? Have the Russians offered something of value?
I don’t know the answer. This is where the confidential nature of diplomatic exchanges makes it difficult to comment. A meeting might be worthwhile if it means Russia will permanently stop its advance in eastern Ukraine and abide by the Minsk 2 agreement. It would certainly be worthwhile if Moscow were seriously committed to a political transition in Syria that excludes Bashar al Assad from power.
The odds against both these propositions are long. Moscow is unquestionably feeling the pressure of lower oil prices, sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Putin wouldn’t be calling Elton John to discuss gay rights (yes, this time he really did) if he weren’t feeling the need to grab a headline or two and project an image of openness and reason. But Putin is a master at distracting attention from his perfidies with ultimately meaningless gestures. He can’t withdraw support for Assad and still hope to hold on to the port facilities at Tartous, which any opposition-supported successor government will feel compelled to banish. Retreat from Donbas, or even a serious effort to implement the existing agreement, would surrender Ukraine to the European Union and the West.
I’ll be glad to be proved wrong, but my sense is that Putin is prepared to stay the course both in Ukraine and in Syria, intensifying or toning down Russian military efforts as the situation requires but refusing to budge on the basic issues of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as support for the existing Syrian regime. If that is right, the best outcome from a meeting next week will be an American conviction that he is irredeemable and that only a shift in the military balance in both places will lead to serious political outcomes in Syria and Ukraine.
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Protecting civilians as a strategic necessity
The Atlantic Council hosted an event Wednesday afternoon on “Protecting Civilians in Syria: Parameters of the Problem and Policy Options.” Congressman Ed Royce, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Medical Director Rola Hallam, of Hand in Hand for Syria, Executive Director Valerie Szybala of the newly established Syria Institute, and the Atlantic Council’s Fred Hof argued that civilian protection is a vital strategic necessity in the Syria conflict.
Royce said 90% of attacks in Syria are on civilian locations such as markets, schools and hospitals. He quoted Congressman Engel’s 2013 statement predicting that lack of US engagement would generate chaos in Syria. Responsibility falls on policy makers who, he suggested, have dragged their feet.
Royce highlighted use of chemical weapons, involvement of organizations like Hezbollah and ISIS, and the activities of Russia and Iran. The Syrian Government is by far the largest abuser of chemical weapons. Chlorine and mustard gas are dropped from helicopters, which only the government operates. The purpose is trauma and terror, generating ethnic cleansing. It is a mistake to allow chemical weapons use to go unpunished.
Russia and Iran have further complicated the situation. Russia is bringing aircraft and tanks into Syria. Both Iran and Russia have increased diplomatic tension in the region with the suspicious “eleventh hour” efforts to lift the arms embargo on Iran in the nuclear deal.
Royce urged decisive action against Assad: “Assad must go.” Working to eliminate his deliberate targeting of civilians is an important step in ending the the conflict and slowing the advance of ISIS, especially the influx of individuals from outside Syria who have transpired from the “Virtual Caliphate” to physical fighters. He also supported a safe-zone to protect the Syrian civilians.
The second half of the event was a discussion on medical neutrality, sieges and barrel bombs. Hallam gave a moving statement on the reality of grassroots medical efforts. Her organization has established six hospitals in northern Syria. Rather than picking locations by supply routes or most demand, the organization unfortunately must choose places with the least risk of bombing. Safety is the number one priority. Over 300 hospitals have been specifically targeted, 90% by the government.
The crisis is political and military rather than humanitarian. Food baskets and stethoscopes do not stop barrel bombs. “Humanitarians are fattening up the cow before the slaughter” one Syrian told her. What is needed is strong political leadership to stop the bleeding. This will be remembered as the biggest catastrophe of the century.
Szybala shed light on besieged individuals in Syria in hopes of inspiring smarter policy options. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are living under siege surrounded by armed actors who intentionally block the supply of aid over an extended period of time. Sieges are a “method of punishment” classified by Szybala as an “invisible crisis” under-reported by the UN. Besieged populations are targets of excessive violence and chemical attacks.
Hof concluded that the Security Council must take action. Civilian protection is a strategic necessity. What is happening is no longer mass murder but genocide, which requires an international response. Diplomacy has to focus on getting Russia and Iran to abandon their Syrian client.
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Uncensored
Iran’s Fars News Agency asked me some good questions. Parts of the interview were included in this article, but parts were also cut, as one might expect. I am publishing here the full text, which I hope will find its way into print also in Iran:
Q: What is your opinion about Iran’s plan to resolve the Syria tension?
A: As I understand Iran’s “plan,” it involves 1) a ceasefire, 2) formation of a national unity government, 3) a rewritten constitution and 4) national elections. This is an outline many can accept, even if some might quarrel with the order.
But “the devil is in the details” we say in English:
1) How does the ceasefire come about? Who monitors and enforces it? What sanctions are there against those who violate it? What if some armed groups refuse to participate in it?
2) Who participates in the national unity government? Does Bashar al Assad step aside or remain as president? How is the security of opposition people participating in a national unity government ensured?
3) Who rewrites the constitution? Within what guidelines? How is a new constitution approved?
4) Who calls elections? Who supervises them? Who ensures a safe and secure environment for the campaign as well as the elections? Who counts the votes?
I suspect there will be many more differences over these questions than over the four-point “plan.”
Q: The UK recently announced that the conflict in Syria will not be resolved unless Russia and Iran use their influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help reach a political solution. What do these signals mean?
A: I’m not sure what the UK meant. It is certainly the consensus in Europe and the US that there is no political solution in Syria if Bashar al Assad insists on staying in power. His opposition won’t stop fighting as long as he is there. Iranian and Russian support enables him to remain. I see no sign that either Moscow or Tehran is prepared to risk losing their influence in a post-Assad Syria, which will surely resent the enormous support they have provided him.
Q: What are Turkey’s roles in Syria and the region? Do you confirm its policy in the Middle East?
A: Turkey has four main interests in Syria: it wants Bashar al Assad gone, it wants Kurds in Iraq and Syria to stop supporting the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, it wants defeat of the Islamic State, and it wants Syrian refugees to return to Syria. The proposed “safe zone” in northern Syria and the Turkish attacks on the Kurds and Islamic State aim to achieve all four objectives, though success is still a long way off.
Q: We know that Turkey had zero foreign policy sometime and it had gains some achievements but today it has taken distance from that. What were and are their problems?
A: As noted above, it has problems with Bashar al Assad, with the Kurds, with the Islamic State and with refugees.
Q: Why is the west silent on Turkey’s support for Daesh?
A: The West has longed implored Turkey to close its border to Daesh fighters and supplies. They have tightened up a lot since ISIS attacked inside Turkey.
It is a figment of Tehran’s imagination that the West is silent. Or maybe a creation of Iran’s propagandists. One of the things most resented in the West is Iran’s implication that the West is not really opposed to Daesh. Nonsense is the polite word we use for that allegation.
Q: Has the US-led coalition succeeded against Daesh?
A: No, but it has had some successes, taking back about one-quarter of the territory Daesh once controlled, depriving it of some of its revenue and killing quite a few of its commanders.
That one-quarter is mostly Kurdish-populated territory. Taking back Sunni-populated territory, especially in Iraq, is proving far more difficult.
Q: How can Muslim countries across the region led by Iran stand against Daesh?
A: The Sunni Muslim countries of the region don’t want to be led by Iran. They are fighting Daesh, but as part of a Western-led Coalition. Iran is also fighting Daesh, but coordination is difficult so long as Iran fails to distinguish between Daesh and more moderate Syrian fighters. From the Western and I think Arab perspectives, it looks like Iran is fighting to defend Assad for sectarian reasons more than it is fighting Daesh.
Q: Let’s go to Iraq. How do you evaluate the ongoing Iran/ Iraq relation? What about the future?
A: Iran has supported Iraq’s response to Daesh quickly and effectively, fearing Daesh success in Iraq would mean trouble sooner or later also for Iran.
But it has used the opportunity in particular to support Shia militias (Hashd, Popular Mobilization Units). That is a mistake, because it exacerbates sectarian tensions in Iraq and increases the likelihood of a breakup of the Iraqi state that Tehran says it does not want.
It seems to me that a strong but non-threatening and unified Iraq is what Iran should be aiming for. I don’t see it doing that at present. Instead the IRGC is pursuing a less wise policy of arming and otherwise supporting sectarian forces that will make keeping the Iraqi state together very difficult.
Q: What is your opinion about latest Russia military developments and build up in some parts of Europe and the Arctic? I do not mean Ukraine at all.
A: The Russians have legitimate interests in the Arctic. But past experience suggests they will try to bite off more than they can chew. They are already overextended in Ukraine and the Middle East. Putin has strong domestic political support, but he lacks the money and military capacity to sustain his aggressive foreign policy.
Q: And thank you for your participating. Could you please explain about Iran/West relations after the deal?
A: I don’t see Iran/West relations much changed, except for the prospect of much greater trade and investment, especially between Europe and Iran, once sanctions are lifted. But Iranian authorities have reiterated their hostility to the United States, which always gets a lot of coverage here.
Washington doesn’t care much about that but wants Iran to stop threatening Israel’s existence and subverting Gulf neighbors through a highly sectarian policy of supporting Shia forces (sometimes political, sometimes military), especially in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon and Kuwait. Iran and the US share an interest in defeating Daesh, but active cooperation on that requires that Iran stop subversion of American friends and allies in the region. As we know only too well, subversion breeds resentment, not influence.
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добро пожаловать
Russia’s President Putin is combining his military move into Syria with a diplomatic effort to convince America that Russia and Bashar al Assad are indispensable to success in the fight against the Islamic State. Putin wants Washington to understand that Russia is a great power and cannot be ignored, in particular in the Middle East. How should Washington react?
The forward operating base the Russians are deploying near Latakia certainly represents a major escalation of Moscow’s engagement in Syria. At the very least, there is a need to deconflict Russian air operations with Coalition combat missions conducted nearby. No one needs an incident in which Russian and American forces come to blows. But that can be done quietly out of the public eye.
It is not clear yet whether the Russians intend to use their deployment to attack insurgents in Syria. Their base could be a defensive move, one intended to keep western Syria safe for the Russian naval facility at Tartous as well as for the regime’s Alawite supporters, and possibly for Bashar al Assad if he is forced from Damascus. For the moment at least, the housing being built can accommodate something like 1500 troops. That’s a far bigger commitment than the few advisors Russia has maintained in Syria in the past, but it is not a force likely to make much of a difference in the civil war in the ongoing civil war there.
If they do decide to engage against insurgents, the Russians are unlikely to distinguish between what the American-led Coalition thinks of as relative moderates and jihadi extremists associated with the Islamic State or Jabhat al Nusra. Nor are they likely to have a lot more success than the Coalition against the extremists, unless they deploy far more substantial ground forces. From the Coalition perspective, this Russian deployment is still small and aimed at least in part at the wrong targets.
So should we resist the Russian deployment, negotiate with Moscow, or do something else?
It seems to me there is an argument, expressed in the title of this piece, for not doing much to try to foil this Russian move or to accommodate it. There is little risk that 1500 Russians can accomplish much on the military side, beyond protecting western Syria from being overrun and the Alawites slaughtered. Any damage the Russians do to relative moderates won’t be decisive. It is at least as likely that the extremists will do significant damage to the Russians than the other way around.
As for the Russian argument that we should all unite with Bashar al Assad to defeat the terrorists, it really isn’t worthy of much of a response. Bashar and his forces have made it clear for years that their real enemies are the relative moderates the Coalition is supporting. Bashar has no real possibility of reestablishing control over all of Syria. His military tactics of besieging civilian areas and terrorizing their population with barrel bombs have done far more to generate terrorist recruits than to reduce their numbers. Russian forces, who honed their tactics in Chechnya, may kill a lot of people but won’t be any better at counter-insurgency warfare.
If there are to be negotiations, the Coalition would do best to continue to insist that they be based on the June 2012 United Nations communique, which called for a mutually agreeable transitional governing body with full executive authority. There is no reason to abandon that oblique formula, which in practice precludes Bashar al Assad from power even if it does not name him.
So rather than take the bait, Washington would do well to keep its cool and resist the temptation to over-react. The Russian deployment wouldn’t be necessary if Bashar al Assad were strong and getting stronger. Moscow is already overstretched in Ukraine. Letting the Russians double down on a bad bet in Syria is the right approach.
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