Seat At Geopolitical Top Table Allowed Putin To Scale Back In Syria
Vladimir Putin cited Russian military success in Syria as his reason for scaling back his forces there. But his belief that the intervention delivered him a seat at the top table of world affairs is more likely to have tipped his hand.
Russia's Syria operation, launched on Sept. 30 last year, made military, diplomatic and domestic political sense for the Kremlin which was keen to shore up its closest Middle East ally and protect its only naval facility on the Mediterranean. It has largely achieved both aims.
But an analysis of comments made by the Russian president and other officials, and conversations with people familiar with his thinking, suggests his primary aim was to make Russia so indispensable to the Syrian peace process that it could regain a measure of the global clout the Soviet Union once enjoyed.
"Russia has returned to the global board of directors," said Alexander Baunov, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "
It has returned) to the table where world and regional powers decide the fate of others' conflicts and Russia is clearly not a local but a world player."
Putin is famously inscrutable and unpredictable, and his decision to draw down in Syria was no exception. He confides in only a small coterie of people around him, and it came as a total surprise for many in the Kremlin and the defence ministry.
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http://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-russia-idINKCN0WH2GB