We shouldn’t be surprised by Russia’s irruption into Syria. If anything, we should be surprised it took so long. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
So the Russians have initiated airstrikes in Syria against anti-Assad rebels. Putin in New York has lectured the US and its allies about their incompetence in the Mideast and Libya to justify Moscow’s intervention. In panic-stricken response, Western media has sounded off in all directions deducing the failure of Obama’s policies, the threat to Israel, the danger of renewed refugee flows and much else. How to make sense of it all?
Over the last decade I have been to Iraq five times and crossed into Syria twice and sojourned in Turkey’s borderlands numerous times. During those years, I have also visited the warfronts of Ukraine and Georgia. I have even ventured into the Hezbollah region of Lebanon. Various articles for various publications ensued–from the Wall Street Journal to Forbes to Newsweek. I write from some years of experience and observation.
Let us start with the simple fact of Russia’s irruption into Syria. Astonishment, shock, horror in news organizations. And yet, if anything, we should be surprised it took so long. I have repeatedly commented in this space that the Russia-Syria strategy closely tracks Putin’s approach to the second Chechen War of the late 1990s. Here’s a post from June of last year (not the first such) arguing and providing citations that Assad deliberately abetted the rise of ISIS. In the post, I say that “this ruse de guerre by Assad suspiciously echoes what happened in Chechnya during the 1990’s when jihadists infiltrated the ranks of Chechen rebels and took over their independence struggle, committed sundry atrocities and alienated world opinion which allowed Putin to carpet bomb them to oblivion along with many innocents. This after the rebels duly fragmented into warring groups.” Assad has scarcely ever bombed ISIS, preferring to target the more moderate groups, and now the Russians have started by doing the same.
In essence, Putin has decided that the moment has arrived for springing the patiently laid trap: Polarize the rebels, let extremists prevail who alienate world opinion, marginalize moderates then obliterate the opposition altogether. Why now? His Ukraine offensive has stalled. His economy is teetering and needs distraction. Assad is losing badly. But above all, the US-Iran détente threatens to overturn Moscow’s calculations in its entire Eastern near-abroad. Look at the map. If Iran goes West, the whole chessboard changes. The Caucasus from Azerbaijan to Georgia and northwards opens up to the world. Armenia will follow. Farther east, the oil and gas of Central Asia will unplug geographically and start to flow through Iran to the West, wrecking the Shanghai Co-operation Organization calculus with China in which the two superpowers control the region’s development. Instead, the ‘Stans will shuffle off the yoke of centuries and evolve with greater autonomy–a disaster for Ruski imperial ambitions. From the 19th century to now, Moscow has refused to loosen its grip on its backyard, despite revolutions, world wars and a Cold War. This is how monolithic states can afford to think and plan over time–they don’t get hounded off course from day to day by unshackled media or humanitarian crises or proper elections. They focus on power.
An interesting tactical sideline within the overall scenario comes from the indefatigable Michael Weiss at The Daily Beast. Weiss, too, has for some years pointed out Assad’s complicity with ISIS. In his latest post, he details out how the KGB funnels extremist Chechens out of Russia to Syria where they join ISIS or comparable outfits, that way they stop making trouble in the Russian Caucasus and help factionalize the Syrian opposition. The maneuver is hardly a new one. I recall that during the post-Soviet, pre-US, era of civil war in Afghanistan the Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood (subsequently murdered) used to complain of capturing “Chinese” prisoners fighting on the Taliban side. They were actually Uyghurs from Shinjiang, disaffected Muslims funneled out by Chinese authorities to Pakistan who passed them on to fight alongside the Taliban.
Back to the main scenario: Putin’s Syria gambit is chiefly a message to Iran–stick with Moscow and the Shiite crescent is back in business again: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah. Tehran need not parlay with the US anymore. For Moscow, Tehran’s nuclear deal with America should not, must not, lead to a realignment of Iran toward the West. Central Asia must stay contained. Neither Moscow nor Beijing has any doubts about the strategic game in play. Neither does Saudi Arabia. The Saudi element also explains Putin’s timing. As I outlined in a recent column, the Saudis met with Putin throughout August and instead decided to go with President Obama’s Iran nuke deal. No doubt the Saudis offered incentives to Putin to raise the price of oil and stop backing Chechen separatists. No doubt the Saudis asked, in return, for the ouster of Assad and got rebuffed. The Kremlin doubled down by moving into Syria.
Only Washington seems befuddled as to Putin’s real motives. That’s what State Department people are saying publicly, and rather implausibly, if truth be told. President Obama took a lot of heat for the Iran nuke deal. He surely had overarching reasons for persevering. He was advised by some genuinely subtle and estimable foreign service minds, veterans such as William Luers and Thomas Pickering. If the U.S. government retains any longstanding institutional memory at all on geostrategic matters it abides with precisely such professionals who served efficaciously throughout the Cold War decades. In fact, they were the ones who conceived the Iran demarche in the first place with a policy paper and the Iran Project website. They undoubtedly saw the situation in its full context.
If they too are surprised by Putin’s gambit, they must be surprised above all at his foolhardiness. He has watched and exploited the West’s stumbling through a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He certainly remembers the Soviet swansong in the latter country. He knows full well that aerial bombing pays few dividends on the ground. He’d be insane to send in troops while trying to hold down Ukraine, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechnya and environs closer to home. Yes, you could argue that Russian intervention will fortify the flagging spirit of Shiite armies in the field, Iranian, Iraqi, Assadist, Hezbollah etc and they will do the fighting. But that would constitute a supreme miscalculation. With Moscow’s entry into the picture, the West’s incentive fades for restraining ISIS or their Gulf backers and the global flood of Sunni recruits. Suddenly Europe and America (and Israel) will cease to be the primary enemy. History will tilt back to the 1980s when the term jihad stood for war against Russia in Afghanistan. History has come full circle in Syria. One can plausibly argue that if anyone has fallen into a trap, it’s the Russians.