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Putin's Plan: Moscow Handles Syria, U.S. Looks After Iraq
Russia has now confirmed that it is intervening in the Syrian war on the side of the Assad government; and, as Al-Arabiya's Azeem Ibrahim notes, the response of the U.S. betrays its impotent incredulity. Russia is poised to return to the Middle East, from which it was ejected with the collapse of the USSR. The United States seems to be telling Russia to go ahead, because, as Raghida Dergham explains, it is unwilling to engage – though it is not yet ready to fully retreat.
Authored by Raghida Dergham, originally posted at Al-Arabiya News,
At the end of this month, New York will be see several initiatives, talks, understandings, and deals come together under two main themes: terrorism and immigration. Both issues in the minds of world leaders are closely linked to Syria and other crises in the Arab world.
The U.S. President Barack Obama called for a world summit on terrorism, with ISIS first and foremost in his mind.
And Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to chair a ministerial session of the U.N. Security Council titled “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Settlement of Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa and Countering the Terrorist Threat in the Region.”
President Putin has effectively declared to the world that Russia intends to fight a war directly against ISIS and similar groups in Syria, while keeping the Syrian regime as a key ally in this war. Russia wants the United States to be a military partner – including of the Syrian regime – in this bid.
Putin wants to meet with Obama on the sidelines of the 70th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Obama is now considering whether the meeting will serve one of the key goals behind the Russian leader’s movements in Syria, namely, diverting attention away from Ukraine. The U.S. president is also considering whether he really wants to be drawn into the Syrian crisis, which he has avoided for years. He might therefore bless Russia’s involvement in the Syrian war against ISIS, as long as Putin does not ask the United States to officially bless the alliance with the Assad regime.
U.S. ‘doesn’t want Assad to fall’
It is worth quickly examining what Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s shrewd envoy to the U.N., told the U.S. network CBS about the Russian strategy. He said: “I think this is one thing we share now with the United States, with the U.S. government: They don’t want the Assad government to fall. They don’t want it to fall. They want to fight (ISIS) in a way which is not going to harm the Syrian government.”
He added: “On the other hand, they don’t want the Syrian government to take advantage of their campaign against [ISIS]. But they don’t want to harm the Syrian government by their action. This is very complex.”
It is not clear whether what Churkin is saying is based on assumptions or whether it is a fact that the U.S. government does not acknowledge publicly. If this is just a Russian interpretation of U.S. policy, then it is part of its strategy to sell its pitch because it assumes that Washington will not demur. Churkin continues: “To me, it is absolutely clear that... one of the very serious concerns of the American government now is that the Assad regime will fall and [ISIS] will take over Damascus and the United States will be blamed for that.”
The Russian envoy also said that Russia wants the Assad government to be party in the peace negotiations, and that the United States and all other players “have to work with the government. We are not saying they have to sit at the same table necessarily with Assad, but they are the Syrian government and they need to work with them. They are fighting [ISIS] on the ground.”
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power spoke to CNN, criticizing the Russian diplomacy calling for rehabilitating the Assad regime that “gases its people, that barrel bombs its people, that tortures people who it arrests simply for protesting and for claiming their rights – that’s just not going to work.”
The Syrian president himself may be an obstacle to any U.S.-Russian accords, but an agreement over preserving the regime could be the way out of this impasse. So far, the U.S. position expressed by Barack Obama is that Assad has lost legitimacy and must leave. The U.S. president and his administration omitted this condition many times publicly, but this remains the official position that Obama has not yet explicitly abandoned. On the other hand, and in very clear terms this time, the Russian president has stated that Russian support for the Syrian government will continue politically and increase militarily, being the indispensable ally in the war on terror in Syria.
Russian diplomacy is going to New York at the end of this month, carrying a comprehensive project for engagement in the Middle East. By contrast, U.S. diplomacy seems reticent and like it is being dragged against its will to discuss crises in the region.
Common denominator
This does not mean that the U.S. administration has withdrawn from the Middle East. The results of the visit by Saudi King Salman to Washington is proof of this. However, the distance between engagement and non-withdrawal is important strategically, and Putin’s Russia is resolved to take advantage of the gap to the maximum extent possible.
The common denominator between the U.S. and Russian priorities today is reducing the Syrian issue to a terrorism issue. Washington has refrained from intervening on Syria through a presidential decision years ago. This non-engagement has practically helped turn the Syrian crisis from a civil uprising to a civil war that has become a magnet for terrorism, with the consent of several players including the Syrian government and Arab, regional, and international governments.
By contrast, Moscow engaged in Syria directly – together with Iran and Hezbollah – in support of the regime in Damascus. They became parties to the civil war, and helped turn the Syrian issue into an issue of terrorism.
Today, Moscow and Washington want to defeat ISIS and similar groups in Syria and Iraq. For this reason, they are both carrying the terrorism issue to the United Nations, to mobilize international support.
The U.S.-led international coalition, which comprises Arab countries, and which has focused on Iraq, does not include Russia and Iran as official members, even though Iran is a secret partner in the war on ISIS in Iraq. This coalition has proven its failure against ISIS, and has failed to factor in the important political elements that are key to success.
Iran deal
Washington is responsible for this failure. Indeed, the Obama administration fixated itself on concluding the nuclear deal with Iran, and ignored the requirements for success fearing antagonizing Iran, and even chose to build a secret partnership with Tehran.
Thus, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the commander of the Quds Force Qassem Soleimani were allowed to boast publicly of the secret partnership, losing the United States a lot of credibility that would have helped mobilize the necessary support to defeat ISIS politically and militarily.
Soleimani has a key link to Russia’s decision to engage on the ground against ISIS and its ilk in Syria. The Russian decision in this direction was made in the wake of Soleimani’s public visit to Moscow, in conjunction with dangerous setbacks for the regime in Damascus that have alarmed Tehran. The Russian-Iranian concern for the fate of the Syrian regime led to a shift in a direction opposite to the one predicted by President Obama, who had claimed Moscow and Tehran were willing to abandon Assad to preserve the regime. Both capitals have instead decided that discussing Assad’s fate is misplaced or premature, and that the developments instead require increasing political and military support for the Assad regime.
A new phase for Russia
President Putin’s announcement of this decision and linking it to the war on terrorism ushers in a new phase in the Russian role in Syria. Putin spoke about a regional-international alliance, and is now spoking about an international decision to build a coalition against terrorism. The bottom line is that Russia has decided to fight a war on terrorism in Syria.
The requirements of the Russian war on terror in Syria, according to the Russian president, include having Moscow in the lead. Putin is practically saying to Obama: You run the war on ISIS in Iraq, and I run the war on ISIS in Syria. This would require Washington to – publicly or tacitly – agree to Russia’s strategy to win that war in partnership with the regime.
The Russian leadership has decided that Syria is a key guarantor of its interests in the Middle East, and that the Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria is a strategic priority.
Many considerations are behind this thinking. First, Russia is present on the ground to exercise influence, by turning the port in Tartus to a Russian military base, and the civilian airport in Latakia to a Russian air base.
Another consideration is the oil and gas reserves off the Syrian coast and its implications for Russian oil and gas interests.
There is also the consideration related to restoring Russian prestige, after the United States excluded Russia from Iraq and the war on terrorism there, and after NATO “tricked” Russia in Libya.
Another major consideration for Russia is seeking to prevent Islamists from taking power, as the United States and Britain tried to engineer in Egypt by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Russia is seriously worried about Islamist terrorism, and is convinced that its victory in Syria would bring it to Russian soil.
In order for Russia’s strategy to succeed, Moscow has decided that there should be a political tack focusing on the conflicts of the Middle East, led by Syria. This is what’s behind the diplomatic bid to unify the Syrian opposition, with the real goal being reducing the Syrian National Coalition and preventing it from exclusively representing the Syrian opposition.
Russia moved to replace the Geneva process with a new one that does away with the fundamental idea in the Geneva I communique, namely, establishing a transitional governing body with executive powers. For this reason, President Putin spoke about Assad’s willingness to share power with the “sound” opposition – as defined by the Russian and Syrian governments.
Warning Europe against the flow of Syrian refugees, President Putin explicitly linked the issue to terrorism, saying that failure to comply with his proposals, including handing the Syrian issue over to him, would exacerbate the crisis of refugee flocking to the petrified European nations.
Russia is poised to return to the Middle East, from which it was ejected with the collapse of the USSR. The United States seems to be telling Russia to go ahead, because it is unwilling to engage – though it is not yet ready to fully retreat.
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That "mortar round" that hit the Russian embassy in Damascus .... while Bibi was explaining the world to Puty Baby.... went deep and didn't explode .... it was a warning to Putin .... with plausible deniability .... we got you in our sights, Puty Baby .... you Jew haters hate to give Mossad credit .... when they're at their clever and daring best ?
To attack an embassy is an act of war. Perhaps the israelis were involved, unlikely with their dear leader in Moscow, more likely USISIS had a hand in that one.
The Israeli's were certainly involved. The message to Putin was quite brazen; "look, we can visit you and pretend to be all friendly but we are mad, mad, mad dogs, and our proxies will bomb your embassy if we want them to"
911 was the most brazen act ever committed on one country by another. Of course the JFE owns the US government and it doesn't own the Russian government yet, but it wants to. The JFE to the American: "you ask me why you don't see any holes in the Pentagon walls where the engines were supposed to have hit? Your being paranoid my silly American friends! It was the Moslems! Now go attack them for us!"
No, I think the Israeli's are playing a close hand on this one.
They'd think it was chutzpah.
Idiots.
That's Mossad's daring best? Putin would not have even raised an eyebrow at that one.
Putin: "Go ahead, make my dyehn."
When IDF kicks ass .... on stoopid Muslims .... it's always a war crime .... maybe it is in the sense .... the stoopid Muslims are so easy to read, head fake and fuck up .... I've really enjoyed the Arab Spring .... Mossad and the IDF and Bibi have played the Muzzies like a Stradivarius ?
Yeah they sure played Lebanon and Hezbollah in 2000 and 2006. How did that one work out?
what do you say, jerkoff, about the killing of those people as in mass extermination as POLICY- GENOCIDE, and then stealing their land to build a PLANET HOLLYWOOD Wal-Mart whatever
I think who is REALLY the stoopid one here, is perfectly obvious
I see the Israeli Gov sponsored internet spamming goup is here is full force=hows the pay?
Monetas said, "I've really enjoyed the Arab Spring .... Mossad and the IDF and Bibi have played the Muzzies like a Stradivarius."
Tell that to your stoopid hommie nmewn. He swears the Arab Spring is all about some fruit seller in Tunisia.
Been saying it for years on here, is all about global chess. ....and Putin is a very good chess player.
Obama needs to stick to checkers. ...
SHORT VERSION: Putin wants to look these men in the eyes.
Let us face it: Nobody trusts nobody and none of them are certain of the future. None of them need to trust the others to hold to any public agreement.
The tired chess-versus-checkers meme is woefully inadequate. This is high stakes no-limit 24hour poker. Putin wants these men to see his eyes.
>>>>
Washington has refrained from intervening on Syria through a presidential decision years ago. This non-engagement has practically helped turn the Syrian crisis from a civil uprising to a civil war that has become a magnet for terrorism
<<<<<
Does the author believe the crap that he wrote???
I know that I have a short attention span but I still remember John McCain cozy visits with the future team ISIS.
Also remember stories about US having training camps in Jordan...US supplying many rebels with equipment only for those rebels to surrender to or outright join ISIS.
The false flag gas attack that was going to be used to attack Syria militarily until Russia stepped in and gave the administration a face saving way out (because by the it was pretty much proven the it was the US supported rebels and not Assad's forces that used the gas).
...and how many times was there an accidental drop of equipment and supplies right into ISIS hands?
So my advice to the author - if you are going to bullshit people, don't make the lies so obvious.
Perhaps Dergham is influenced by the associations that she keeps.
Dergham is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the International Media Council of the World Economic Forum. The latter’s mission is to “improve the state of the world” by supporting everything from combating global climate change to achieving gender equality to universal health coverage for all.
It was at January’s Davos WEF that “former Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon proposed that global warming should be dealt with by banning all automobiles in urban areas. The scheme would mean spending $90 trillion to redesign all cities to make mass transit and walking viable.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/al-gore-develops-90-trillion-scheme-to-rebuild-every-city-to-get-rid-of
According to Wikipedia, “The Lebanese government suspended Dergham’s passport while she was in Beirut...as a result of a May 2000 panel discussion, in which Dergham participated, that included a representative from the Israeli government...sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C. Dergham was subsequently charged with ‘dealing with the enemy,’ a crime in Lebanon, and in June 2001 a trial was held in Lebanon…"
It appears that the WEF (and perhaps Dergham) puts politics above its moral objectives. Hence, “AJC Welcomes World Economic Forum Apology”:
January 26, 2006 – New York – The American Jewish Committee welcomed today’s statement of regret by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, who apologized for the publication of an article (in its official magazine Global Agenda) advocating an international boycott of Israel...
AJC sent a strong letter of protest to Schwab… “We hope that you agree that the inclusion of this article was not only a mistake, but an unfortunate endorsement of bigotry that must be remedied immediately,” wrote AJC Executive Director David A. Harris, who urged the WEF leadership to denounce the article and to institute policies to insure that such hatred never again appears in a Forum publication.
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=8479733&ct=12488589#sthash.pnVREuae.dpuf
almost too well known to be worth repeating.
A leading motive for US murder of Gaddafi and
destruction of Libya was to take over Gaddafi's
weapons and send them from Benghazi via Turkey
to Syria/ISIS/Al Qaeda and other assorted
US employed mercenary terrorists to overthrow Assad.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-efforts-to-arm-jihadis-in-syria-the-scandal-behind-the-benghazi-undercover-cia-facility/5377887
All just politico babble. You know how it goes. Same as in a bar room.
If you blatantly call the other guy out on his bullshit there's nowhere to go but rumble.
Not psyched up for that stage yet.
Game of strategy remember. Always leave room for the enemy to retreat.
Nope, sorry Vlad. The US will take care of all of this territory, especially the pipelines that traverse it.
Samantha Power spoke to CNN, criticizing the Russian diplomacy calling for rehabilitating the Assad regime that “gases its people, that barrel bombs its people, that tortures people who it arrests simply for protesting and for claiming their rights – that’s just not going to work.”
Wait.... what? US drones citizens, arms terrorists, tortures prisoners, police have a license to kill protestors, is there a difference Samantha? If so then perhaps I'm missing something here. Err, no, I don't think I am.
I agree with your point but any "citizen" standing five feet from some @#$%& ISIS mortar tube or goat BBQ 9,999 miles too far away from us, his "homies" (hah), shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that his life's end is to be found in the back pages of the actuarial tables.
The "police license to kill" idea needs work. It works for Ruby Ridge, Waco and SWAT home invasions but not for street demonstrations. It would be interesting to see the rioting negro (RN) read the riot act one of these days, but it won't happen to the love children of Debby Whatsername-Shoots. You just don't see good street theater any more.
Reports: Russian troops refusing deployment to SyriaRussian media outlet interviews group of soldiers who refused to be deployed to Syria, describing secretive preparations and their fears: 'We don't want to die there.'
Itamar Eichner
Published: 09.20.15, 23:43 / Israel NewsAs Russian expands its military presence in Syria, a report was published on Saturday in Russian newspaper Gazeta.ru examining the transfer of weapons, equipment, and manpower from the Russian port city of Novorossiysk to Al Assad base in Syria, and quoting several soldiers who expressed their desire to stay away from the war-torn Middle Eastern country.
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QUICK WATCH | 01:02
The paper interviewed a group of soldiers, mainly non commissioned troops, who refused to deploy to Syria due to their fear of ISIS. One of the soldiers, a lieutenant named Alexei, said, "We don't want to go Syria, we don't want to die there."
The original report
The group complained that the military had hid their destination from them. They were due to be shipped off on September 17, but 10 days later they were told they would be deployed to a hot region with a very different climate than what they were used to, and that there would be poisonous animals at the new place, but the specific region was not named.
The soldiers were surprised to receive new weapons and equipment with their serial numbers removed. The soldiers were also instructed on how to behave if they were captured.
Russian Su-27 jets in Syria
At first, the soldiers assumed they were being sent to eastern Ukraine. But On September 16, the army told them they would be sent to Latakia and that they may have to participate in the fighting alongside Syrian troops.
The troops were required to sign confidentiality agreements, and were told that if they didn’t sign – their families would not receive compensation if they were wounded or killed in the fighting. The soldiers were also warned that if they didn’t sign – they would face criminal charges.
President Putin is cracking down (Photo: AP)
The paper also interviewed mothers of soldiers who had been sent to Syria, who said that their sons had been sent to fight a war that was not theirs: "People there are driven like cattle to the slaughter." The soldiers complained that they felt like mercenaries.
Alex Tanzer, an expert on Russian media, explained that President Vladimir Putin passed a law in recent months which banned the publication of names of soldiers killed in action. The law was passed as a result of the public outcry caused by the war in Ukraine. The outcry has been renewed by the soldiers who are being sent to Syria.
The Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with President Putin on Monday in order to discuss the strategic coordination between the two countries in the wake of the Russian buildup.
Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkott and the head of military intelligence Herzi Halevi will join Netanyahu in Moscow.
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Ukraine has the same problem, only worse....eveyone is drinking Vodka at their posts, tanks etc
Russian media outlet interviews group of soldiers who refused to be deployed to Syria, describing secretive preparations and their fears: 'We don't want to die there.'
Itamar Eichner
Published: 09.20.15, 23:43 / Israel News
"Israel News". Lol. Thanks Falconflight - we all needed that laugh.
Rubbing my palms together
Good thing is that the snow kingdom does not forget its friends
rather it stands by with them
the established govts.
Sanity & stability
-----------
What America does is to create terrorists, arm rebels,
or fund NGOs for mass uprising
in order to topple established govts.
create chaos, deaths, refugees
Our officials are involved over there in something greasy and dishonorable.
One of these days they should do us the courtesy of telling us mere mortals WTF it is, if that's not too much to axe.
Assuming they know, of course.
It is nonsensically simplistic to ignore
the major role of the Kurds in both Syria and in Iraq;
and the interactions between the Kurds and Turkey.
few people know that it was Putin (yes, that man once again), who convinced the Kurds to cooperate with Assad against ISIS. And of course, Turkey does not fight ISIS at all, they just fight the Kurds. That is why Putin wants to have some serious talk with Erdogan during the UN Assembly. We shall see.
"Washington has refrained from intervening on Syria through a presidential decision years ago" Obongo was very publicly trying to intervene 2 years ago by bombing the shit out of Assad, but couldn't drum up support.
Who writes this bullshit. Someone is either ill informed or is trying to re write the facts.
The whole article is nonsense.
You can't criticize Obie's strategy because there is no strategy beyond, "Let's see what happens, then issue a press release denying all responsibility and blaming the Republicans, or maybe global warming." That doesn't seem to be working out too well.
Putin's plan. Cut off US/NATO supplies of weapons to ISIS that are supplied thru Turkey. Cut off oil sold thru Turkey. Starve ISIS of support.
At the headline level, given the current national level demagoguery on all sides, Russia's proposal - if it can be trusted both on the policy level, and at the tactical level where diverse commanders will have to avoid killing one another by mistake near the border - seems eminently reasonable.
But the fact is that Russia is in this not for Assad, but to ensure that the only energy pipelines to Europe come from Russia.
And the fact is that the US is in this on the side of the insurgents in Syria to facilitate a non-Russian pipeline to Europe from Qatar, and is involved on the Iraq side of the border to belatedly contain the catastrophic spill-over resulting from the mishandling of that policy.
Assad and the Syrian people both would be better off accepting large and continuing financial donations from Europe, the Qatari's, and/or the Saudi's in return for allowing the pipeline.
Russia would be better off using the money it is spending to militarily ensure there are no competing pipelines, to instead make their energy production-and-transport system more efficient so that they will win any pricing war against the Qatari's and Saudi's. Hell, it would be easy. Now that the islamists have risen from their Ottoman graves there are going to be serious and expensive threats to any middle-eastern pipeline that will absolutely and unavoidably add to Qatari/Saudi bottom line delivery costs. It would be a much lower profile, lower effort way to still win.
The US would be better off if it did not support allies intrigues using military force or proxy insurgencies, but kept things to a lower profile, less expensive level of support. The politico's are going to pay their foreign cronies to conduct such intrigues no matter what. But the footwork on the ground ought never be American's, CIA, or similar. If Qatar or Saudi is willing to throw the whole region into disarray to get a European contract, then they ought to do the footwork themselves (because allowing the foreigners to do it politically threatens their effort at home and abroad)...and expect direct material support only from the direct beneficiaries...(that's you Europe). The US, ought to butt out, or at most send condolence money.