President Vladimir Putin sees Bashar al-Assad as a vital asset in his fight against Western powers.
Anti-Assad protesters hold a banner that reads, 'Al-Qubair massacre challenges the world’s humanity’ Photo: AP
By Con Coughlin
8:37PM BST 07 Jun 2012
155 Comments
As the families bereaved in the latest atrocity carried out by supporters of Bashar al-Assad yesterday undertook the painful task of burying their dead, those responsible for operating Syria’s state-sponsored killing machine were taking delivery of yet another cache of Russian weapons.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, might insist, as he did during his state visit to Beijing this week, that he is totally opposed to any form of foreign intervention in Syria’s deepening sectarian conflict. But his publicly declared position is very much at odds with Moscow’s thriving arms trade with Damascus, which is currently worth an estimated $400 million a year. Indeed, the regular movement of weapons from Russia to Syria, which in the past has included the latest anti-aircraft missile technology, as well as more everyday fare such as sniper rifles and grenades, has only grown in the 15 months since the Assad regime first came under pressure from anti-government protesters.
The flow of arms has continued even when the Assad regime, which is increasingly feeling the effects of the UN’s economic sanctions, has been unable to pay its bills. Rather than abandon a valued ally in its hour of need, Moscow has maintained its support by extending its lines of credit, or through the simple expedient of sending the bill to Iran, Syria’s sole regional ally.
The Iranians are, of course, experiencing their own difficulties with UN sanctions that have been imposed because of their persistent refusal to cooperate with the West over their nuclear programme. But that has not prevented the ayatollahs who, like Mr Putin, are desperate to keep the Assad clan in power from finding hundreds of millions of pounds to fund Syria’s arms purchases from Moscow.
It is not hard to understand Iran’s desire to see the Damascus regime survive its current difficulties. As one of the last remaining anti-Western bastions in the Arab world (although others may soon be emerging, thanks to the so-called Arab Spring), the Assads have proved reliable allies of the ayatollahs for the past three decades. As well as adopting the same confrontational attitude to Israel as Tehran, Damascus has proved helpful in sustaining Hizbollah, Iran’s proxy militia in southern Lebanon. All the weapons and other equipment Iran provides for Hizbollah are shipped through Damascus, which also acts as a valuable ally in the militant group’s ongoing campaign to dominate Lebanon’s political landscape.
Related Articles
_ Syria: western powers close to abandoning peace plan - 07 Jun 2012
_ Syrian aide to Assad gains admission to Columbia University - 07 Jun 2012
_ Clinton: Assad has 'doubled down on brutality' - 07 Jun 2012
_ Clinton: It's time for Assad to go - 07 Jun 2012
_ Syria: full horror of al-Qubeir masacre emerges - 07 Jun 2012
But at a time when Moscow is supposed to be nurturing its ties with the outside world, its slavish devotion to the Assad cause seems harder to justify. Part of the explanation for Russia’s perverse attachment to the butchers of Damascus lies in the former Soviet Union’s historic ties to the Syrian Ba’athists, who proved to be a reliable and steadfast ally during the darkest days of the Cold War. While America and its allies had unlimited access to the Mediterranean and the Gulf, the Soviet navy had to rely solely on Syria for its re-supply needs. In addition, the Soviets built a sophisticated listening post at Latakia – a rival to Britain’s eavesdropping base in Cyprus – to enable the Kremlin to keep a watchful eye over its enemies.
Moscow’s strategic reliance on Syria as a military and intelligence-gathering base goes some way to explaining its reluctance to ditch its erstwhile ally, even at a time when the Assad regime is known to be sanctioning acts of pure evil. The other factor, though, is Mr Putin’s desire to reassert his status as a major world player following his re-election as president earlier this year.
As Mr Putin’s promise to boycott this summer’s London Olympics suggests, the Russian president seems determined to revive the mood of anti-Western antagonism that pervaded the Kremlin during his previous spell in office. His decision to form an alliance with the Chinese this week to block any attempt by the UN to halt the bloodshed in Syria was not motivated out of any residual affection for the Assad clan. It was a brazen attempt to frustrate the efforts of the Western powers, driven mainly by humanitarian considerations, to prevent Syria degenerating into all-out civil war. So far as Mr Putin is concerned, any policy the West wants to pursue will inevitably attract Moscow’s opposition.
And if that’s the way Mr Putin wants to play the Syrian crisis, then the West needs to respond accordingly. Rather than seeing the Syrian crisis as fundamentally a human rights issue, we should view it in the same strategic terms as the Russians do.
For example, just imagine how the region’s fortunes would be improved if the Assad regime were overthrown and replaced by the first pro-Western government since the overthrow of the Syrian monarchy in the Twenties. Iran’s supply lines to Hizbollah would be cut, thereby denying the militia access to the stockpiles of powerful missiles it uses to threaten Israel. At the same time Russia, the Assads’ only significant ally outside the Middle East, would no longer enjoy its favoured nation status in Syria’s capital and ports.
The West pursued a similar strategy at the end of the Cold War when, despite Moscow’s protests, it actively encouraged the newly liberated states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to embrace Western-style democracy, rather than continuing to tolerate the Kremlin’s meddling in their affairs. The Syrian conflict is immeasurably more complex, but regime change in Damascus would undoubtedly benefit the West as much as it would the long-suffering people of Syria.
***
156 comments
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
08062012
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment