The Observer view on Russia’s military intervention in Syria
Observer editorial
27 September 2015 09.05 AEST
Putin risks worsening a dire conflict for his own gain, and we sit silent
Photo: Vladimir Putin suggests his military intervention in Syria is intended to help international efforts to defeat Islamic State. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/Corbis
It is a chastening measure of the cluelessness of western policy in Syria that President Vladimir Putin has been able to suggest, with an implausible altruism, that he, of all people, is the man with the solution. Predictably, his idea of a fix is primarily military. The recent Russian build-up in bases along Syria’s western seaboard reportedly includes attack helicopters, combat jets and armed forces personnel. This is a dangerous and unwelcome development.
Russia’s intervention, or rather its escalation (since the Kremlin has long clung to its Syrian foothold in the Arab sphere), is presented to the outside world as a starting point for a revamped international campaign to defeat Islamic State (Isis). Putin, Moscow suggests, is doing what hapless Barack Obama cannot: showing a lead in tackling the black-flagged, black-hearted standard-bearers of global Islamist jihadism. The reality is considerably less hopeful. By recklessly raising the military stakes in the Syrian cauldron, by acting unilaterally and without any manner of UN or collective mandate, by threatening to send aircraft into areas where American, Turkish and other anti-Isis forces are operating, Putin risks further complicating an already fiendishly complicated conflict. Amid the horror of hundreds of thousands civilians killed, millions more displaced and a nation broken asunder, Russia’s actions could make a terrible situation worse.
Even if this were not the case, there is another more fundamental objection. As he has proved time and again, Putin is not a man to be trusted. When he speaks at the UN on Monday, and in his scheduled meetings with Obama and other leaders, Putin will have three main objectives in view, and defeating Isis is not chief among them. One is securing the position of Bashar al-Assad – the pro-Moscow dictator primarily responsible for Syrian carnage, and his illegitimate regime – at least in the short term, when Russia should instead be supporting his arrest for war crimes. In this he is likely to be encouraged by increasing signs that other states – Britain among them – may be moving towards accepting a continuing role for the dictator in a post-conflict Syria.
The second is to distract attention from eastern Ukraine and Russia’s infamous Crimea land-grab. By playing the international statesman and thereby supposedly rehabilitating himself in the eyes of the world, Putin hopes to gain acquiescence, or at least forgetfulness, over Ukraine and, in time, relief from the sanctions that have driven Russia’s economy into a painful contraction this year. But most of all, Putin in New York will again be pursuing his most cherished objective: re-establishing Russia as a global power after the bitter humiliations of the immediate post-Soviet era.
Looking at the vacuum left by Obama’s retreating America, Putin seeks to position Russia again as a key Middle East player. How gratifying for him to have Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu paying personal court in Moscow recently, in recognition of this enhanced role. Looking at the serial crises rocking the EU, from recession to Greece to migration, Putin hopes, as ever, to exacerbate and play upon European divisions. Looking at vulnerable borders from Estonia to Serbia, at the entire post-Soviet space including Georgia and Moldova, and at perceived Nato weakness, Putin sends submarines and nuclear bombers to dramatise his message: Russia is back. His rapid build-up in Syria is not, primarily, about vanquishing Isis, although Russia certainly has good reason to fear Islamist extremism. It is but a part of a bigger, ongoing international power-play fuelled by visceral hostility to the west.
Advertisement Yet a strange silence reigns as Russia’s Syria intervention proceeds. Where are those once strident voices that so vehemently opposed similar US and British action? What say those who encouraged Labour’s parliamentary veto on bombing designed to stop chemical weapons atrocities? Might the Syria-Europe migration catastrophe have been mitigated, had we acted differently? And what would Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have us do now about the self-interested, invasive meddling in Syria by Russia and pro-Assad Iran? Russia does have a legitimate role in resolving the Syrian crisis and legitimate concerns about violent Islamist militancy. It can deploy its diplomatic expertise to bring regional players on-side. It can reverse its negative behaviour in the UN security council. It can use its considerable leverage with Assad to stop him barrel-bombing his own people, agree a ceasefire, and open negotiations. And, yes, it can collaborate, meanwhile, in joint efforts to degrade and destroy Isis. But most importantly, Putin should make plain to Assad, as others must also continue to do, that any Syrian settlement will require his departure. A positive and responsible Russian role, if it can be encouraged, possibly by western incentives, would hasten this much desired end.
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Putin sends submarines and nuclear bombers to dramatise his message: Russia is back. His rapid build-up in Syria is not, primarily, about vanquishing Isis, although Russia certainly has good reason to fear Islamist extremism. It is but a part of a bigger, ongoing international power-play fuelled by visceral hostility to the west.
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But most importantly, Putin should make plain to Assad, as others must also continue to do, that any Syrian settlement will require his departure. A positive and responsible Russian role, if it can be encouraged, possibly by western incentives, would hasten this much desired end.
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