US President Barack Obama has been saying the Syrian situation is complicated. The direct Russian military intervention, however, brings clarity to what is at stake and who are the major players.
The “war on terror” rhetoric used by Washington and Moscow has long been obsolete as state-supported fighters on both sides wage war for control of territory and people. Terrorist attacks by the Islamic State group against the “far enemy” homelands are an extension of the wars in the Levant, not the core struggle.
Major powers have been drawn into the larger Sunni-Shia conflict that runs across the region. Moscow has doubled down on the Shia side of this ancient struggle. The US must now decide how far it will go to support its Sunni allies.
At the moment, Washington has been is focused on the Islamic State group (also known as ISIL, ISIS, IS and Daesh) even before the attacks in Paris. In a major speech at Indiana University on Oct. 15, Secretary of State John Kerry recited a list of actions being taken by the 65-nation coalition formed to fight the black flag Sunni insurgents seeking to build a caliphate in Syria and Iraq: thousands of airstrikes, the recapture of Tikrit and securing most of the Turkey-Syria border to block foreign recruits.
There was, however, no similar list of actions being taken to compel a “transition” from the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to a more “inclusive” government. All he could offer was “a diplomatic process that gives hope to every Syrian who wants to marginalize the extremists and put in place a government capable of uniting and leading the whole country.”
In his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 27, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said: “As Russia acts in a coalition of two with Iran at its side [to support the Assad regime] … we will keep prosecuting our counter-ISIL campaign unabated. … And, consistent with our strong and balanced approach towards Russian aggression elsewhere in the world, including NATO and Ukraine, we will keep the door open for Russia to contribute to efforts toward a political solution.” … the only answer to the Syrian conflict.”
Russian ties to the Assad regime go back to the Cold War. Russia’s only base outside the former Soviet Union is at Syria’s Mediterranean port of Tartus. A regime change would result in expulsion, as Moscow feared would happen to its Black Sea base in Crimea once it lost influence in Ukraine. We know how far Russian President Vladimir Putin went to protect Sevastopol. Can anyone expect that Russia would negotiate a political settlement that would shift authority away from Assad’s faction?
Hopes that Moscow and Iran can be split apart by Western and Arab diplomacy seem remote, as the Russians have their own reasons to see a friendly regime in Damascus that align with Tehran’s interests.
Iran, the center of Shiite power, has troops on the ground to prevent regime change. Any hope that the nuclear deal would lead to a larger rapprochement with Tehran has been dashed. And Obama’s claim that the Iranians have shown “that they were serious about the possibility of giving up the pursuit of nuclear weapons” is wrong.
Tehran demanded to keep its nuclear infrastructure and research capabilities because a nuclear threat is vital to backstop an aggressive foreign policy. Tehran recently tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It is also improving, with Russian help, its defenses It is also posturing to defend itself against attacks that could be a response to a further escalation of regional conflicts or to cheating on the nuclear agreement.
Russia is providing Iran with advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guards threaten suicide attacks against American warships.
The US position is further weakened by a lack of credibility among Sunnis after the debacle in Iraq. Assurances that the Iraqi Sunnis would get fair treatment from a Shiite government in Baghdad proved meaningless once America withdrew. A strong US military presence must guarantee any agreement or the Sunnis cannot risk laying down their arms.
ISIL is a wild card in this larger conflict because it has committed atrocities against all sides. In the absence of a stronger alliance against Assad, ISIL will continue to pose as the Sunni champion. However, it will continue to attract recruits due to its willingness to wage total war for a nominally Sunni cause.
Secretary Kerry claims that no military solution is possible, but no diplomatic-political settlement is viable that does not reflect the balance of power on the ground. So either the US acts to change the balance of power back in favor of its regional allies, or accepts defeat.
Obama gets criticized because he didn’t drop a couple of bombs for 10 hours, but that wouldn’t have gotten rid of the chemical weapons. But because he was ready to do it and announced he was ready to do it, we were able to strike a deal with Russia, and we got all of the declared chemical weapons out of Syria — the first time in the history of human conflict that weapons of mass destruction have in total been taken out of a country while that conflict is going on. Imagine if we hadn’t done that and Daesh got those weapons.
William R. Hawkins is an author and retired US House Foreign Affairs Committee staff member.
