A sliver of Mideast calm
Moscow leading charge to restore order in Syria
Observing the languid scene at this border crossing over the Al Khabir River, with a Syrian tricolour rippling in the breeze 100 metres away, it was impossible to imagine the world’s most toxic war was taking place nearby until a Lebanese villager politely suggested a visitor might wish to take cover because he was likely in the gunsights of someone on the far side.
This narrow finger of Syria, sandwiched between Turkey and Lebanon and abutting the Mediterranean Sea, is at peace because Russian President Vladimir Putin and his armed forces have been at war against the enemies of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad since Sept. 30.
The campaign caught western governments as flat-footed as they were when Russia seized Crimea and eastern Ukraine last year. Russia successfully thwarted an advance by ISIL jihadists on Assad’s tiny but politically powerful Alawite clan in the crucial slice of Syria that provides its only access to the sea.
Over the weekend, six Russian warships, some of which operate from the Kremlin’s naval base 27 kilometres north of Aarida at Tartus, warned civilian traffic out of Lebanese air space. Then they launched a volley of cruise missiles into Syria from the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, dozens of warplanes from Russia’s new airbase at the Syrian port city of Latakia and heavy bombers from bases in Russia continued their bombardment of opposition forces that want to topple Assad, in particular those backed by the U.S.
Until now, Putin has not expressed much interest in pleas from the U.S. and France, repeated again over the weekend, to join them in focusing their firepower on ISIL.
For Assad, Russia’s intervention was a Hail Mary pass that suddenly put his blood-soaked regime out of danger. Aside from providing Putin with another boost to his already sky-high popularity at home, the move has reinstalled Moscow as a key player in the Middle East for the first time in 25 years.
But it wasn’t all Putin’s doing. He benefited from blunders by U.S. President Barack Obama. The most crucial error, in terms of international credibility, was Obama’s failure to honour his line-in-the-sand vow to topple Assad if he used chemical weapons against his people.
Obama was also wrong to have rejected his generals’ advice to delay the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. That decision emboldened ISIL, which has gleefully filled the power vacuum there while expanding its reach in Syria.
As the wars in Iraq and Syria have metastasized into conflicts involving scores of factions and convoluted, shifting alliances, Obama has gone after ISIL with a half-hearted air campaign and an inept, now-cancelled $500-million program to train moderate forces in Syria who opposed ISIL.
Faith in Obama’s leadership has been so badly shaken the long-standing regional dynamic, with Washington as the arbiter of everything, is in peril, if not already over. Speaking for a continent that used to rely on U.S. leadership, Der Spiegel magazine wondered last week why if Syria was at the top of the West’s agenda, it was Putin who was restoring order.
“Seldom has the West been so embarrassed. Rarely has the U.S. been so humiliated,” the influential German weekly said.
Offering an apparent olive branch to the West, Russia said last month Syria’s political succession was a matter that could be discussed later. But in a shift that demonstrated its growing confidence and influence, Russia let it be known last week the West must stop demanding Assad has to go.
If Assad had fallen, Russia would have lost its only military toehold in the Middle East and with that Putin’s ambitions to be the dominant player in Syria, which would get his country included in every discussion about the region.
There is a debate today about whether Putin is a brilliant strategist or only making the necessary pragmatic decisions to keep his bases in Syria and Russians behind him. He faces serious and growing economic problems at home caused by western sanctions over Ukraine and, more importantly, the collapse of oil and gas prices.
However, there can be no question Putin is savvy about how to stir up trouble. The former KGB colonel was trained to spread disinformation, to obfuscate and to do anything else to divide public opinion in the West.
While Obama and other western leaders have prevaricated over what to do about ISIL and Russia’s actions, Putin has ignored their objections as he ignored them over Crimea and eastern Ukraine. He is convinced the West will talk big, before dithering and caving in.
Nothing is clear about who is winning or losing. But there can be no doubt because of Russia there is a pocket of stability across the river from Lebanon’s Aarida border post.