Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumRussia carving out a fortress for Assad, say experts
Paris (AFP) - The contours of Russia's strategy in Syria are emerging as it tries to carve out a rebel-free zone for Bashar al-Assad's regime and shut out Western forces from his air space.
Although the stated aim of Russia's mission was to target the Islamic State (IS) group, most analysts have dismissed these claims as window-dressing for a campaign that primarily seeks to prop up Assad's embattled regime against a much broader group of rebels.
"The priority for the Russians is to protect 'useful Syria'," said Michel Goya, a military historian at Sciences Po university in Paris, referring to the densely-populated western and coastal parts of the country where Syrian industry and agriculture are concentrated.
He said the Russians' first priority was attacking Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra, who are a more immediate threat in those areas than IS.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/29736418/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)There are few precedents in modern Russian, or even Soviet, history for Vladimir Putins dramatic intervention in Syria. The projection of force at that distance from the homeland is something that previous occupiers of the Kremlin have studiously avoided for the most part. Leonid Brezhnev sent the Red Army into Afghanistan in 1979, starting that countrys spiral into violence that 40 years later it still has yet to escape. But Afghanistan bordered the Soviet Union and was not a conflict in which Western powers were substantially involved at that time. In the 1960s there were thousands of Soviet military advisers in Egypt brought there by President Gamel Abdel Nasser, but they were never in a combat role. In 1972 following Anwar Sadats assumption of the presidency they were all expelled. Even Stalin in 1950 chose not to follow Mao Zedong in sending Soviet troops to join the Korean War.
New facts on the ground
The history underlines the drama of what has happened in the past week. On Monday, President Putin flew to New York to meet with US President Barack Obama at the annual UN General Assembly, a meeting of world leaders that the Russian president has avoided for the past 10 years. Though the situation in Ukraine remains unresolved, there can be little doubt that Syria was the heart of the conversation. Russia had already deployed ground attack aircraft, helicopter gunships, the cruiser Moskva as well as marines to the Latakia/Tartous area of northern Syria, a bastion of support for beleaguered President Bashar al-Assad. There can be little doubt that Putin told the US president that these assets were to be used in the near future. In fact, within 48 hours the Sukhoi 29 fighter bombers were striking targets including ISIS in al-Rakaa province; but they also hit other groups, including some supported by the United States and its principal allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Russias foray into the four-year-old Syrian war has had a dramatic effect in the Middle East despite the substantial risks Putin has taken. The Russian leader appears to have a strategy while Obama looks to be struggling, underlined by a defensive press appearance at the White House last Friday. The Russian leader has created facts on the ground and has guaranteed himself a place at any final settlement of the Syrian war because Russia has become a party to the war.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/putin-s-gamble-syria
bemildred
(90,061 posts)---
Each president is trying to lead a coalition against the terrorist group, ISIS. Despite the 7,000 coalition airstrikes, the militant groups remain entrenched in major strongholds and continue to recruit thousands of foreign fighters with the help of Turkey. The Obama administration insists on a managed transition away from the dictatorship of the Syrian President, Bishara Assad. Obama says Assad has to go. Assad and his father have committed major injustice to the Syrian people, especially to the Kurds. I agree with President Putin who said that this is not the right time to remove Assad because even if you try whose troops are capable of doing the job, knowing that the Al Nusra front, the Al Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic States are at Assads doorstep.
And besides, who will replace him? As long as the Shiite (Allawe) have control over the regime and millions of Syrian people have fled the country the US demand will not be fulfilled.
President Putin said, No one but President Assad and the Kurdish militia are truly fighting the Islamic States and other terrorist organizations in Syria. I agree with him. The US has spent $500 million recruiting, training and equipping the fighters to join the Free Syrian Army. Unfortunately, only a handful came out of that recruitment and they joined the terrorist group, Al Nusra. The Kurds are gaining some territories against the Islamic States and they claim they are about to shut the Turkish border from the foreign recruits that are joining ISIS. Why is the US not helping the Kurds? The answer is
because of the Turks.
It was a few years ago when the Islamic States started to control territories in Syria and in Iraq and that is when the Turks start helping ISIS. The Turks trained and facilitated ISIS in order for them to go after the Kurds. Unmercifully ISIS killed, beheaded and imprisoned thousands of innocent people, including Christians and Yazidi. Thousands of Yazidi woman and children were sold into the slave market.
http://ekurd.net/obama-putin-two-opposing-forces-2015-10-06
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)The Turks trained and facilitated ISIS in order for them to go after the Kurds.
Really? WTF IS GOING ON HERE?
If this is true we should drone Edrogan and his ilk. Fuck all the supporters of terrorists especially Americans and NATO allies who cynically play this game. Support ISIS or al nusra? What the heck is wrong with these people, are they mentally defective?
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)Handy, in the event he decides to engage NATO.
Reminds me of the Spanish Civil War.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)NATO wants to engage him but lacks the means, an excuse, and the support of Europe, which sees Winter coming and likes the idea of blowing up ISIS so the refugee river can stop. NATO is not worried that Putin will fail, they would love that, they are worried he will succeed.
That analogy is not out of place, I think, as long as you don't push it too far.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday said removing President Bashar al-Assad is the top priority in Syria.
Clinton, speaking at a town hall meeting in Hollis, said the United States should pursue a diplomatic solution in resolving Syria's internal conflict.
Her comments come at a time of a growing gulf between Russia and the U.S. on the appropriate place of the Syrian President in the fight against ISIS.
U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday that Russia's ongoing military action in Syria against moderate groups puts at further risk "the very political resolution and preservation of Syria's structure of future governance it says that it wants."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.678985
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Next she'll be reminiscing about her state department Arab Spring.
#fail
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Vladimir Putin is reshaping the Middle East to fit Russias interests by adhering to fundamentals of international affairs that the several parts of Americas foreign policy establishment have set aside in favor of what they deem sophistication.
Unlike our Realists, who start out compromising our interests with those of local allies, Putin is bending theirs to Russias. Unlike our Liberal Internationalists who try to lead by giving power to local allies, Putin directs them in operations of his choice. Unlike our Neoconservatives who deploy force piecemeal endlessly, Putin uses it decisively.
The Wall Street Journals Realists in a Sept. 29 piece fretted that Putins tank/plane/artillery expeditionary force is empowering Iran as well as Syrias Assad: Russian planes can target anyone Assad deems an enemy. No. They are targeting anyone who stands in the way of Russias objectives. Thats a big, big difference. Neither Assad, nor Iran, nor Irans Shia allies in what used to be Iraq have any reason to delude themselves that Putins assistance will take them any farther toward their own objectives than is absolutely necessary for Putin to achieve his own.
Putins objectives are obvious: to secure Russias naval base at Tartus, surrounded by a substantial enclave of Alewives rendered reliably reliant on Moscow and who will serve as its pied a terre on the Mediterranean shore, crush all challenges thereto; since ISIS is the apex of the Sunni militancy that is also infecting Russia through the Caucasus, crush ISIS. Unlike our geniuses, Putin knows that the Assad regime, the Shia militias, and the Iranians are the only people who will hazard their lives to save the Alewis and to crush ISIS. So, he is arming and organizing them. But he has no intention of trying to re-unite Syria under Assad, or to try to re-unite Iraq under the Shia, much less of seconding Iran in its Islamic World War against the Sunni.
http://atimes.com/2015/10/grading-the-putin-school-of-international-affairs-codevilla/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)--
But it isnt events in Syria itself that matter so much here. What Putin sees is that the Syrian war is causing a refugee crisis in Europe. That crisis is already causing serious economic and political strains. It is now very much in Europes interest for the stream of refugees to be stemmed as soon as possible. Anyone seen acting to stop that war and stem that flood will be perceived as acting in Europes immediate vital interests.
Putins most immediate vital interest is the easing or lifting of the sanctions imposed on Russia after its annexation of Crimea and proxy war in eastern Ukraine. Coupled with the nosedive of oil prices, the sanctions are now causing harm to his entourage and constituencies, as well as to the economy in general. The example of Iran proves two things: Sanctions work and, sooner or later, sanctions will be lifted. Unlike Iran, Putin will not seek to come to an agreement with the U.S. and Europe. Rather, he will continue to take steps that will be viewed in Europe as serving its vital interests: slowing the flood of refugees, and taking on ISIL directly.
And so Putins moves in Syria are first and foremost about Ukraine, money and his own power. Though Putin is often likened to a chess player, here he appears more like a pool player doing an off-the-cushion shot and using the Syria ball to knock Ukraine into the pocket.
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If Russia can be seen as seriously trying to stop the war in Syria, which is the cause of much of the refugee crisis and if the rickety cease-fire continues to hold in Ukraine sentiment in Europe will begin turning against the sanctions and it is with Europe that Russia does much more business than with the United States.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/9/decoding-mr-putin-in-syria.html
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Sunni propaganda ful of bile. Funded by Qatar who are ISIS fundraisers and yet another syphiliitic Sunni monarchy hanging on to the last century.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)With Russian planes targeting the self-styled Islamic State (IS) in Syria and the US-led coalition strikes, too, targeting their hideouts, the region Syria in specific and the Middle East in general has started to give the impression of a classic cold war rivalry brewing between the US and Russia.
While Russians are trying to set their foot on the Mid-Eastern geo-political landscape through air-strikes, the US has been trying to prevent it. And so far, the US has chosen to rely only on Obamas carefully constructed criticism of Putins policies.
After the annexation of Crimea, Russian campaign against IS in Syria seems to be the second biggest indicator of systemic changes taking place at global level. While it may be too early to really predict the precise nature of these changes, it is never too early to talk about them.
The Western medias anti-Russia propaganda notwithstanding, Moscows involvement in the region does mean an official accomplishment of Putins long cherished dream: gaining a strong foothold in the Middle East a region that is important for Russia not only for its strategic reasons and warm water ports, but also for the impact this regions geo-politics directly leaves on Russian economy.
http://atimes.com/2015/10/middle-east-turning-into-an-open-contest/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)---
So let us get right to the essence: Does the President, and his Administration following him, know what he is doingstrategically speaking, whether in Syria or anywhere elseor not? If one judges by the official annual strategy documents mandated by the Congress, if one talks to refugees from the NSC, and if one matches up visible behavior against past models, the answer is not really. As I have argued before, the most likely reality that outsiders are trying to penetrate is one consisting of several impulses or biases in the Presidents mind, festooned with some academic notions brought to his attention by advisers and other communicants, but that are not tightly tethered to a means-and-ends schema one could legitimately call a strategy. Over time, of course, the Presidents fidelity to his own gut instincts sum post hoc to certain patterns that produce a cumulative outcome that is far from random. And the reappearance of certain issues over and over again tend to reify such patterns, at least selectively. So we see strong policy lines on issues where there have been lots of PC meetings over the past seven yearsIran, saybut only faint lines where PC meetings have been few and far betweenIndia/Pakistan/Kashmir, say.
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Inconsistency and double standards, so much anathema to certain kinds of excessively well-ordered minds, are not necessarily liabilities in real life. That is because the world, tooor at least the human social aspects of it we care most aboutgives off a distinctive aura of the inconsistent and the multi-measured. So it matters what gut instincts and predilections lie behind the chaos to insinuate into policy whatever order it comes to have. Even short of an actual strategy, then, what are Barack Obamas gut instincts, and how have they applied to Syria?
If we were to put the most formal face on an answer to this question, it would go like this: Obama is sold on offshore balancing. He thinks the United States is overinvested in the Middle Easta term he and several advisers have usedand underinvested in Asia. He thinks that if the United States stops acting like a control freak with a Cold War hangover, and just gets out of the way in several parts of the world, well end up with a foreign policy that is less dangerous (no chain-ganging via obsolete alliances into wars in which we have no vital interests), less expensive (no need for that vast foreign basing footprint or hugely expensive defense budget), and less a distraction from vital needs for reform here at home. He thinks that other countries take us for an adversary because we support their adversaries, so if we distance ourselves from traditional friends and allies, then well be able to engage them productively. The President has let slip for examplein reference to being reminded by Jeffrey Goldberg about Saudi discomforts in this casethat change can be difficult for those grown used to open-ended American protection.
The result overall has been a severe ratcheting down of what constitutes a threat to U.S. vital interests. Threats of mass-casualty terrorism, particularly if joined to weapons-of-mass destruction proliferation, constitute a category of vital interest like no other in this Presidents view. Managing the rise of China is a structural concern, also deserving of concerted attention. But Ukraine, Syria, Egypt, Eurozone distempers and all the other headline soaks that pop into view from time to time are no longer vital interests, and only by leading from behind or not leading at all will responsible governments come to own up to their own security obligations. This is, in other words, a whole new way of thinking about burden sharing. Yes, the interregnum can be messyit is messy, for revisionist powers are trying to fill the vacuum. But Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Japan, India, Nigeria perhaps, and several other states are slowly but surely passing the test of stepping up to the plate, so what we need is patience and a little bit of luck.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/10/03/putin-obama-and-the-middle-east/
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Russia moved on Tuesday to resume military talks with the United States aimed at setting rules for air-to-air conduct over Syria, a U.S. official said, as the former Cold War foes carry out parallel, uncoordinated campaigns of air strikes.
The discussions on ways to keep the U.S. and Russian aircraft from clashing over Syria, launched last week, have gained urgency after the United States and NATO denounced Russia for violating Turkish airspace.
Turkey, a NATO ally, threatened to respond, raising the prospect of direct confrontation.
During a trip to Europe, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter described the need to resume talks as urgent, and condemned Russia's "seriously irresponsible and unprofessional" violation of Turkish airspace.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/06/us-mideast-crisis-usa-russia-idUSKCN0S01HG20151006
bemildred
(90,061 posts)BEIRUT At a meeting in Moscow in July, a top Iranian general unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar Assad could be turned into victory with Russia's help.
Major General Qassem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new Iranian-Russian alliance in support of Assad.
As Russian warplanes bomb rebels from above, the arrival of Iranian special forces for ground operations underscores several months of planning between Assad's two most important allies, driven by panic at rapid insurgent gains.
Soleimani is the commander of the Quds Force, the elite extra-territorial special forces arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and reports directly to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/how-iranian-general-plotted-out-syrian-assault-moscow