Putin is filling a vacuum in Syria, but what is Moscow’s endgame? [THE NATIONAL]

October 3, 2015

Russia is back in the Middle East. Understanding how it got there, and what ramifications this is likely to have, are crucial to figuring out what comes next. Not as part of a proxy war in which the region is a playground for external interests – but for ordinary people, particularly the population of Syria, as they try to get on with their lives.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered air strikes in Syria and increased his country’s presence on the ground. Comprehending how Russia came to be in this position is direly pertinent to understanding what needs to happen in the future.

Unfortunately, no Arab state, nor even a conglomerate of Arab states, is providing critical leadership for this region. Filling this void has often fallen to Washington – which has its own record of failings in the region. But Washington’s approach to the latest catastrophe has been so meagre and timid that Mr Putin just strolled in to Syria.

Mr Putin is Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s most powerful global ally, followed by the Iranian regime. For all the protestations around “external interference” and “foreign meddling”, the regime in Damascus relies tremendously on external military support from the Russians, Iranian forces or the Hizbollah militants active on his soil. Mr Putin’s ally, Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov, who has an appalling human rights record, has just volunteered to send forces of his own to fight in Syria – and the Russian Orthodox Church has declared Russia’s involvement as a “holy war”.

There are Russian concerns in Syria, including the coastal port in Tartus, a key naval interest for Moscow in the Mediterranean Sea. But Moscow’s overall strategic concern is unclear. Is this about Moscow being engaged for the sake of declaring internationally and domestically that “Russia is here”? Or is there a genuine plan for a better future for the people of Syria and, more widely, the region?

The latter seems dubious. In the past five years, Russia has openly opposed all of the Arab uprisings that were calling for fundamental rights. Moscow’s rights record within its own borders has been harshly criticised. Irrespective of the valid critiques to be made of the US and the West’s often disastrous involvement in the region, there should be no naïveté around Moscow.

Russia’s activity goes beyond Syria. Russia has also been more directly engaged in Egypt, in what analysts and diplomats have privately described as a “mutual flirtation” of the most public kind.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government appears keen to fight ISIL and is perfectly happy for Russia to assist in that regard. Even Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been publicly anti-Assad, has gone to Moscow – although he came away with nothing on Syria. It should have been clear that that would be the case, but he went anyway. Such is the geopolitical attraction of Moscow, given the other variables in the region.

So, why does Moscow project that attraction? For a long time, Mr Putin has insisted that Russia is a global power, that it deserves to be a global power, and that its path to glory is struggling with and overcoming the United States. As the US withdraws from a scene, Russia must, therefore, be present.

Is the greatest variable in that regard the absence of western commitment? That comes back to a much deeper issue – that the region’s own powers have failed to live up to their own responsibilities. There ought to be no need for an external corrective to Bashar Al Assad or the radical extremists on Syrian soil – the Arab world and its neighbours ought to be far more present in addressing such issues.

In the long term, it is crucial that the region sorts out its own problems, respecting fundamental rights domestically, regionally and internationally. Nothing can substitute that.

In the short term, Moscow sees opportunities to involve itself within in the region. The West may bluster, but has not shown itself willing to follow such indignation with much in the way of positive and well-thought-out action. As long as all these variables remain, Syrians, and the region, are likely to suffer yet more calamities.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer

Source: The National

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