Russia’s Success, the West’s Failure

Gorka Sampedro

By FRANÇOIS HEISBOURG

Published: June 7, 2013

PARIS — More than two years after the revolt broke out against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, it is fair to say that Russia’s policies are succeeding, whereas the West’s analysis and actions are failing.

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• Times Topics: Syria — Uprising and Civil War | Russia

Thanks in large part to Russia’s military, political and diplomatic support, the Syrian dictator’s regime has not fallen and his repression continues relentlessly, unimpeded by a paralyzed U.N. Security Council. The West has been unable to shape events on the ground, with its “red lines” apparently fading into insignificance.

But Russia’s success to date, while significant, will be short-lived. President Vladimir Putin has made his point, and it is now in Russia’s own interest to cooperate with the West and help foster an end to the bloodshed in Syria.

Not only is the opposition militarily and politically disunited, but its most ferocious jihadist elements are in the ascendant, benefiting from the weaponry liberally provided by their rival patrons in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. After Afghanistan and Iraq, an easy-to-get-to Syria has also become the primary magnet for large numbers of foreign jihadist wannabes, who may return armed and trained to commit acts of terror in the West. That development makes it increasingly unappealing for the West to send arms to the rebellion, and it is doubtful whether the recent lifting of the European Union’s arms embargo will be (or should be) followed through.

Russia’s success is typical of the country’s history as a great power during the last two centuries: It is used to taking calculated risks, even against apparently long odds, and its approach tends to operate in a zero sum perspective — my gain is your loss. But this approach also forces Russia to cope with the immensely difficult consequences.

Russia has been present in Syria as a major provider of defense and political support for half a century, building up habits of cooperation and ties at all levels of society, perhaps best symbolized by the intermarriage of thousands of Russian-Syrian couples.

To preserve its long-standing investment, the Kremlin’s interest would appear to be to remain on the right side of whoever happens to be in power in Syria. When the revolutions of the Arab Spring blossomed in 2011, it was widely assumed both in the West and in the Arab world that Assad’s fall would echo that of Tunisia’s leader, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, since the same causes tend to produce the same effects in similar societies. It appeared that Russia had backed a loser, at the risk of losing all of its positions in Syria, including access to the naval facilities in Tartus. But, for the time being, the gamble has gone Moscow’s way.

However, only part of this policy was linked to Russia’s genuine self-interest, such as Moscow’s fear of contagion from a jihadi-dominated Syria to fundamentalist groups in the Caucasus. Russia has been largely — maybe mainly — driven by the wish to punish the Western powers for having abused, in its eyes, the Security Council’s authority to overthrow Qaddafi.

Putin wasn’t going to let this happen a second time. Hence the negative-sum outcome: The West has clearly been blocked at the United Nations and generally deterred from acting decisively to shape events in Syria.

At the same time, Moscow gains little in positive terms. The Syrian civil war means that Russia’s interests in that country have decreasing value, while the rise of jihadist groups increases the risk of spillover in the Islamic regions of Russia.

Furthermore, Russia will find it no less easy than the West to deal with the local and regional consequences of the Syrian civil war. Assad is no longer holding on as the chief of a functioning state but as a warlord who is more powerful than others in a splintering Syria. Neighboring Jordan is facing an existential threat, and a dysfunctional Iraq appears to be descending anew into civil war. The ultimate Russian interest is presumably not to become the collateral victim of spiraling jihadist violence.

Therefore, after having successfully made his point against the West, Putin may now find it expedient to seriously attempt a political solution at the conference planned this summer in Geneva, for example by holding back on weapons shipments.

The same restraint should apply to Western arms deliveries. The West could also agree to allow Syria’s ruling Baathist party to be a full part of any political solution, including in the organization of elections, along the lines that allowed for a reasonably successful transition in Yemen.

The West has good reason to resent the success of Russia’s support of Assad, with its atrocious human consequences. But today the situation is what it is, not what the West would have liked it to be. It has become in the West’s interest to refrain from arming the jihadis and to support a political resolution, preferably without Assad, but probably not without the ruling Baath party and bureaucracy.

François Heisbourg is special adviser at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, a Paris-based think tank.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/opinion/global/russias-success-the-wests-failure.html