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If everyone against Nusra or ISIS terrorists is a terrorist in your view, it gives us a real glimpse of who the real terrorists are.
First Russia airstrikes smashes terrorist hideouts VIDEO
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If everyone against Nusra or ISIS terrorists is a terrorist in your view, it gives us a real glimpse of who the real terrorists are.
Kurlang
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A new Cold War with Russia may be inevitable
This is a critical moment in US-Russia relations.
The civil war in Ukraine is settling into a mutually hurtful stalemate; a workable nuclear deal with Iran has been concluded; and Russia is ramping up its presence in Syria, which increases the danger of confrontation with the United States but also opens up the potential for cooperation against the Islamic State (or ISIS).
Before a more hawkish US administration comes to power — and before anti-Americanism becomes further entrenched in Russia as evidenced by the latest Levada Center public polling data — perhaps there is an opportunity for Washington and Moscow to overcome their current impasse.
This is our hope. But theory and evidence point to a sobering conclusion: Neither side can make the concessions necessary to resolve their current differences and prevent relations from deteriorating even further.
Commitment anxiety
The chief concern of those calling for negotiation between the United States and Russia is that while the current relationship is beset by a number of serious differences, the downside of an openly hostile relationship is even worse.
These voices argue that without an updated European security framework to resolve some of the worst tensions (and implicitly to update the post-Cold War settlement), a new Cold War between the two camps will emerge.
The competition would not be as encompassing as before, but it would make cooperation on vital issues outside of Europe — including Iran, ISIS, and Syria — unsustainable and lead to an inherently more unstable international order. In turn, they advocate for a mutually acceptable framework for regional order to avoid future conflicts from arising in other areas of the post-Soviet space.
REUTERS/Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/PoolRussian President Vladimir Putin uses a pair of binoculars to observe troops in action during a training exercise at the Donguz testing range in Orenburg region, Russia, September 19, 2015.
A larger “grand bargain” to regulate the structure of international and regional relations based on mutual accommodation is a worthy goal. Nevertheless, we are skeptical that such a grand bargain can be reached, because it would suffer from acute commitment problems.
Russia would have to convince the United States and its allies that it would not push for even greater revisions to the status quo. The United States would have to demonstrate to Russia that it would stick to any bargain and not go back to the policies that threaten it.
Impossible concessions
Among the insights of bargaining theory is that states can overcome commitment problems by accepting costly concessions that signal their resolve to abide by agreements. What hypothetical concessions could both sides make to make the grand bargain stick?
Russia could atone for its actions in Crimea — which Washington and other Western capitals see as a grave breach of international law and order — by either reversing the annexation or by using economic and other inducements to get Kiev to recognize the new status quo.
The United States could address Russia’s fears of encirclement by NATO, perhaps by agreeing to the formation of a pan-European security organization with authority above NATO’s (as Dmitri Medvedev proposed during his presidency). Or, it could formally abrogate NATO’s right to enlarge its membership and recognize the neutrality of the post-Soviet states on Russia’s Western borders.
While these concessions could conceivably make a bargain work, we believe that the domestic political costs of trying to implement such agreements would be too high for leaders of both sides. Any demand for the return of Crimea to Ukraine (as many Western voices have implored) is a non-starter for Russia. The Kremlin has invested so much in the “Return of Crimea” discourse that even minor concessions on this issue would shake the regime’s legitimacy to its very foundations (and perhaps even threaten a nationalist revolt).
ISW
The alternative — inducing Ukraine to recognize de facto the loss of Crimea — is also problematic, with severe domestic blowback almost certain to befall any government in Kiev that made the deal. Moreover, given its current economic difficulties, Moscow may not be able to deliver the economic inducements necessary to win Kiev’s compliance.
On the other side, any concession that would give Russia a de facto veto over NATO’s policies would be rejected outright by the alliance’s members.
The more moderate option, the abrogation of NATO enlargement and the recognition of Russia’s sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space, is unacceptable to American leaders and publics. It would validate a realpolitik understanding of international relations that is fundamentally at odds with their views of international relations — in which every state should be free to choose its alliances.
A downward slide?
As things stand now, neither side can make the concessions necessary to make a grand bargain work. As a result, both now find themselves sliding towards a new Cold War that neither really wants.
REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueUS President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin look towards one another during their meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York September 28, 2015.
We hope that statesmen on both sides will prove us wrong by finding the courage and foresight necessary to overcome these commitment problems.
But it is difficult to be optimistic given the current political climate, as talk in both capitals is dominated by the sort of Russia- and America-bashing which prevents either side from developing an appreciation of the other’s security concerns.
Read the original article on The Brookings Institution. Copyright 2015. Follow The Brookings Institution on Twitter.
Russian jets reportedly bombed US-backed rebels in Syria
IBTimes UK
Syrian opposition groups report that Russia has carried out its first airstrikes in the country, targeting rebel-held areas in northeastern Homs province.
Videos shared on social media showed what the groups say were Russian Su-24 and Su-25 aircraft flying over the area and the aftermath of the aerial bombings, with Syrian civil-defense members trying to pull out victims from collapsed buildings. Other clips showed children hit by shrapnel and people bleeding at the local hospital.
ISW
The French TV channel TF1 had filmed Russian military jets, cargo planes, and attack helicopters arriving at Latakia airport on Sunday.
The Syrian opposition said the airstrikes hit al-Lataminah, Zaafrana, and Talbisah, areas held by the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and other Islamist groups such as Jaish al-Islam. Opposition-linked groups posted the names of 15 people who were killed in the airstrikes in Talbisah on Twitter.
The US cannot pass Syria on to Putin
Obama's comments on Syria at the United Nations on Monday, you could hear a sad admission of failure: The United States hasn't been able to organize a winning strategy to deal with the Islamic State. Maybe we should let Russian President Vladimir Putin try his hand.
Obama's speech had two signature comments. The United States has learned over the past decade that it "cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land."
And in the Syrian quagmire, "The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict."
Enter Vladimir, stage left. Putin's own U.N. speech contained a bitter rebuke to the United States for working to decapitate regimes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya without having the ability to restore order. "Do you realize what you have done?" he asked icily.
He targeted the contradictions in a U.S. policy that proclaims Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go but that hasn't yet created any practical alternative to the rampaging Islamic State.
"Russia has played a horrible hand brilliantly. We folded what could have been a pretty good hand," argues Ryan Crocker, a retired U.S. diplomat who has served in nearly every hot spot in the Middle East and is among the nation's wisest analysts of the region. "The Russians were able to turn a defensive position into an offensive one because we were so completely absent."
Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States. But for now, Putin is certainly winning the perception game.
Thomson ReutersFree Syrian Army fighters fire from a tank during what they said was an offensive against the forces of Syria's PresidentAssad in the southern city of Deraa, Syria
The danger is that regional powers will view recent events as a full-blown U.S. retreat, like the withdrawal of an exhausted Britain in 1971 from its military garrisons "east of Suez," which was seen as the last gasp of the British Empire.
Moscow's military intervention comes as the United States is reckoning with its setbacks in Syria and Iraq in combating the Islamic State. A frank assessment was presented in congressional testimony in June by the Rand Corp.'s Linda Robinson.
The Rand analyst's judgments were devastating: The Iraqi security forces, the main pillar of U.S. strategy there, "are not at present an effective force." The Kurdish peshmerga are "capable" but in "defensive mode" and "not the silver bullet that some would wish them to be." Sunni tribal forces are "still nascent." In Syria, the U.S. "train and equip" force is "absolutely too little, too late."
Robinson concluded politely that U.S. strategy needs "adjustments" — either drawing in new partners, adding more unilateral U.S. forces or moving to a more limited containment strategy that amounts to periodically "mowing the grass."
Given these reversals for U.S. policy, should the Obama administration simply accede to Moscow? That would be a significant mistake, in my view. For all of Putin's vainglorious boasting, the Russians can't defeat the Islamic State.
Quite the contrary, Russian intervention (in partnership with Iran) may fuel the Sunni insurgency even more. And if U.S. military partners in the region — such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even Israel — really think Washington has ceded the ground to Moscow, the region could become even more chaotic.
ISW
Obama still has several potent, relatively low-risk options, if he'll use them. The United States and its allies can impose "safe zones" in northern and southern Syria to allow humanitarian assistance and greater security.
Opposition leader Walid al-Zoubi said Monday in Washington that if such zones were established, the opposition would work with Syrian government organizations to restore basic services. These safe zones would recognize the reality that Assad cannot control more than half of Syria's territory, even with Russian bombs.
While Russia talks, the United States can also step up the fight against the Islamic State. It should urgently increase support to the 25,000 Syrian Kurdish forces and 5,000 Sunni tribal fighters north of Raqqa.
These are motivated, committed fighters. Even Putin conceded Monday that the Syrian Kurds "are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria." They deserve more American help.
As Putin proclaimed Russia's "growing ambitions" in the Middle East, did we perhaps hear a faint echo of George W. Bush on the eve of his 2003 Iraq invasion? The law of unintended consequences works for Russia, too.
The best outcome would be for Putin to realize, now that he has ostentatiously shouldered the burden of combating Islamic extremism, that his only real chance of success is a diplomatic settlement that begins the "managed transition" to a post-Assad Syria. Otherwise, he has begun a painful misadventure.
Read the original article on The Washington Post. Copyright 2015. Follow The Washington Post on Twitter.
This is a critical moment in US-Russia relations.
The civil war in Ukraine is settling into a mutually hurtful stalemate; a workable nuclear deal with Iran has been concluded; and Russia is ramping up its presence in Syria, which increases the danger of confrontation with the United States but also opens up the potential for cooperation against the Islamic State (or ISIS).
Before a more hawkish US administration comes to power — and before anti-Americanism becomes further entrenched in Russia as evidenced by the latest Levada Center public polling data — perhaps there is an opportunity for Washington and Moscow to overcome their current impasse.
This is our hope. But theory and evidence point to a sobering conclusion: Neither side can make the concessions necessary to resolve their current differences and prevent relations from deteriorating even further.
Commitment anxiety
The chief concern of those calling for negotiation between the United States and Russia is that while the current relationship is beset by a number of serious differences, the downside of an openly hostile relationship is even worse.
These voices argue that without an updated European security framework to resolve some of the worst tensions (and implicitly to update the post-Cold War settlement), a new Cold War between the two camps will emerge.
The competition would not be as encompassing as before, but it would make cooperation on vital issues outside of Europe — including Iran, ISIS, and Syria — unsustainable and lead to an inherently more unstable international order. In turn, they advocate for a mutually acceptable framework for regional order to avoid future conflicts from arising in other areas of the post-Soviet space.
A larger “grand bargain” to regulate the structure of international and regional relations based on mutual accommodation is a worthy goal. Nevertheless, we are skeptical that such a grand bargain can be reached, because it would suffer from acute commitment problems.
Russia would have to convince the United States and its allies that it would not push for even greater revisions to the status quo. The United States would have to demonstrate to Russia that it would stick to any bargain and not go back to the policies that threaten it.
Impossible concessions
Among the insights of bargaining theory is that states can overcome commitment problems by accepting costly concessions that signal their resolve to abide by agreements. What hypothetical concessions could both sides make to make the grand bargain stick?
Russia could atone for its actions in Crimea — which Washington and other Western capitals see as a grave breach of international law and order — by either reversing the annexation or by using economic and other inducements to get Kiev to recognize the new status quo.
The United States could address Russia’s fears of encirclement by NATO, perhaps by agreeing to the formation of a pan-European security organization with authority above NATO’s (as Dmitri Medvedev proposed during his presidency). Or, it could formally abrogate NATO’s right to enlarge its membership and recognize the neutrality of the post-Soviet states on Russia’s Western borders.
While these concessions could conceivably make a bargain work, we believe that the domestic political costs of trying to implement such agreements would be too high for leaders of both sides. Any demand for the return of Crimea to Ukraine (as many Western voices have implored) is a non-starter for Russia. The Kremlin has invested so much in the “Return of Crimea” discourse that even minor concessions on this issue would shake the regime’s legitimacy to its very foundations (and perhaps even threaten a nationalist revolt).
ISW
The alternative — inducing Ukraine to recognize de facto the loss of Crimea — is also problematic, with severe domestic blowback almost certain to befall any government in Kiev that made the deal. Moreover, given its current economic difficulties, Moscow may not be able to deliver the economic inducements necessary to win Kiev’s compliance.
On the other side, any concession that would give Russia a de facto veto over NATO’s policies would be rejected outright by the alliance’s members.
The more moderate option, the abrogation of NATO enlargement and the recognition of Russia’s sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space, is unacceptable to American leaders and publics. It would validate a realpolitik understanding of international relations that is fundamentally at odds with their views of international relations — in which every state should be free to choose its alliances.
A downward slide?
As things stand now, neither side can make the concessions necessary to make a grand bargain work. As a result, both now find themselves sliding towards a new Cold War that neither really wants.
We hope that statesmen on both sides will prove us wrong by finding the courage and foresight necessary to overcome these commitment problems.
But it is difficult to be optimistic given the current political climate, as talk in both capitals is dominated by the sort of Russia- and America-bashing which prevents either side from developing an appreciation of the other’s security concerns.
Read the original article on The Brookings Institution. Copyright 2015. Follow The Brookings Institution on Twitter.
Russian jets reportedly bombed US-backed rebels in Syria
IBTimes UK
Syrian opposition groups report that Russia has carried out its first airstrikes in the country, targeting rebel-held areas in northeastern Homs province.
Videos shared on social media showed what the groups say were Russian Su-24 and Su-25 aircraft flying over the area and the aftermath of the aerial bombings, with Syrian civil-defense members trying to pull out victims from collapsed buildings. Other clips showed children hit by shrapnel and people bleeding at the local hospital.
ISW
The French TV channel TF1 had filmed Russian military jets, cargo planes, and attack helicopters arriving at Latakia airport on Sunday.
The Syrian opposition said the airstrikes hit al-Lataminah, Zaafrana, and Talbisah, areas held by the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and other Islamist groups such as Jaish al-Islam. Opposition-linked groups posted the names of 15 people who were killed in the airstrikes in Talbisah on Twitter.
The US cannot pass Syria on to Putin
Obama's comments on Syria at the United Nations on Monday, you could hear a sad admission of failure: The United States hasn't been able to organize a winning strategy to deal with the Islamic State. Maybe we should let Russian President Vladimir Putin try his hand.
Obama's speech had two signature comments. The United States has learned over the past decade that it "cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land."
And in the Syrian quagmire, "The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict."
Enter Vladimir, stage left. Putin's own U.N. speech contained a bitter rebuke to the United States for working to decapitate regimes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya without having the ability to restore order. "Do you realize what you have done?" he asked icily.
He targeted the contradictions in a U.S. policy that proclaims Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go but that hasn't yet created any practical alternative to the rampaging Islamic State.
"Russia has played a horrible hand brilliantly. We folded what could have been a pretty good hand," argues Ryan Crocker, a retired U.S. diplomat who has served in nearly every hot spot in the Middle East and is among the nation's wisest analysts of the region. "The Russians were able to turn a defensive position into an offensive one because we were so completely absent."
Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States. But for now, Putin is certainly winning the perception game.
The danger is that regional powers will view recent events as a full-blown U.S. retreat, like the withdrawal of an exhausted Britain in 1971 from its military garrisons "east of Suez," which was seen as the last gasp of the British Empire.
Moscow's military intervention comes as the United States is reckoning with its setbacks in Syria and Iraq in combating the Islamic State. A frank assessment was presented in congressional testimony in June by the Rand Corp.'s Linda Robinson.
The Rand analyst's judgments were devastating: The Iraqi security forces, the main pillar of U.S. strategy there, "are not at present an effective force." The Kurdish peshmerga are "capable" but in "defensive mode" and "not the silver bullet that some would wish them to be." Sunni tribal forces are "still nascent." In Syria, the U.S. "train and equip" force is "absolutely too little, too late."
Robinson concluded politely that U.S. strategy needs "adjustments" — either drawing in new partners, adding more unilateral U.S. forces or moving to a more limited containment strategy that amounts to periodically "mowing the grass."
Given these reversals for U.S. policy, should the Obama administration simply accede to Moscow? That would be a significant mistake, in my view. For all of Putin's vainglorious boasting, the Russians can't defeat the Islamic State.
Quite the contrary, Russian intervention (in partnership with Iran) may fuel the Sunni insurgency even more. And if U.S. military partners in the region — such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even Israel — really think Washington has ceded the ground to Moscow, the region could become even more chaotic.
Obama still has several potent, relatively low-risk options, if he'll use them. The United States and its allies can impose "safe zones" in northern and southern Syria to allow humanitarian assistance and greater security.
Opposition leader Walid al-Zoubi said Monday in Washington that if such zones were established, the opposition would work with Syrian government organizations to restore basic services. These safe zones would recognize the reality that Assad cannot control more than half of Syria's territory, even with Russian bombs.
While Russia talks, the United States can also step up the fight against the Islamic State. It should urgently increase support to the 25,000 Syrian Kurdish forces and 5,000 Sunni tribal fighters north of Raqqa.
These are motivated, committed fighters. Even Putin conceded Monday that the Syrian Kurds "are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria." They deserve more American help.
As Putin proclaimed Russia's "growing ambitions" in the Middle East, did we perhaps hear a faint echo of George W. Bush on the eve of his 2003 Iraq invasion? The law of unintended consequences works for Russia, too.
The best outcome would be for Putin to realize, now that he has ostentatiously shouldered the burden of combating Islamic extremism, that his only real chance of success is a diplomatic settlement that begins the "managed transition" to a post-Assad Syria. Otherwise, he has begun a painful misadventure.
Read the original article on The Washington Post. Copyright 2015. Follow The Washington Post on Twitter.
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Indiscriminate bombing of Talbise, Rastan, Zaafranah and other cities as it happened today is pure terrorism.
Kurlang
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One US option in Syria: Let Putin bleed
Early September brought the newsthat the Russians were deploying military forces to Bassel al-Assad International Airport near Latakia on the Syrian coast.
The Aviationist website recentlyreproduced satellite imagery showing twenty-eight combat aircraft, including four Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole (air-to-air and ground interdiction) fighters, twelve Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes, and twelve Sukhoi Su-24 attack planes.
In addition, the Russians have deployed fifteen helicopters, nine tanks, three missile batteries, cargo planes, refueling aircraft, and about five hundred soldiers to the same airfield.
The Obama administration has not said much about the deployment, only that it was seeking clarification from Moscow.
Pentagon officials were generally mum last Friday after Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, saying only that they are watching the situation closely.
The administration’s critics and supporters have responded to these developments in ways one might expect—howling criticism or over rationalization justifying why the presence of Russian forces in Syria is actually no big deal.
They both have it wrong, though. Of course, the Russian buildup is a very big deal and marks a new, even more complicated and potentially dangerous phase in the Syrian conflict, but that is precisely why we should welcome it.
Over the weekend I heard former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband explain that the Russian deployment was a function of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s weakness, of which Moscow has become all too aware. Under these circumstances the deployment should be seen as an elaborate Russian maneuver to improve its negotiating position in the inevitable diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, which, while not including Assad himself, will have to include “regime elements.”
StratforSatellite images of Russian military hardware in Syria's Bassel al-Assad air base.
In Miliband’s estimation the Russians are ready to dump Assad in return for American flexibility on the nature of the post-Assad ruling coalition.
Miliband is hardly an outlier. I have heard or read variations of these claims on any number of occasions, and each time they ring hollow. They are interesting reflections of what we think the Russians would be doing if the Russians were us.
It reminds me of late February 2014 when all the smart kids were saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be so stupid as to take over Crimea and that he merely sought to pressure and manipulate Ukraine from the outside.
Those might be things that we would do, but they were never part of Putin’s playbook. Even as that big, creepy, crying bear was being pushed around the closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics and I was being told that the Russians were full of bluster and not much else, they were gassing up the tanks.
More directly, Moscow has been fairly clear about its intentions in Syria, no? According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s growing military presence in Syria is intendedto combat the self-declared Islamic State and defend the Syrian state.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Two caveats are in order here. First the Russians could be lying, but they really have no reason to dissimulate, confident that the United States is going to accept the Kremlin’s fait accomplijust as it has in Ukraine.
Second, Miliband may be correct; Russian statements have referred specifically to the “Syrian state” and not the Assad regime, which Kremlinologists of yore might interpret as an implicit nod to the confluence of Russian and American interest in a unitary Syrian polity. We’ll see.
All this is a long wind up to the idea that while the West should not exactly learn to love Russia’s intervention in Syria, the United States, Europeans, and the Gulf states might actually come to like it.
Moscow may think it is somehow calling Washington’s bluff in the fight against the Islamic State, but folks should separate out the Russian bluster and the political posturing of Obama administration opponents and supporters on Twitter and consider the serious implications of the Kremlin’s move.
The Russians just put themselves squarely in the middle of an extremely nasty, brutish civil war featuring a grab bag of extremist groups that includes the Islamic State, which would likely love to take a shot at the Russian military. If the reports of large numbers of Chechens filling the ranks of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces are accurate, it is payback time.
Those jihadists are arrayed against Moscow’s allies, a nefarious group that includes Hezbollah, Assad’s militias, what is left of the Syrian military, and agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
AP Photo/militant social media account via AP videoChechen militants in ISIS will be anxious to go to war with Russia.
If the risks to the Russians in this environment are not clear, they should be. They are no longer an indirect party to the conflict, they have a huge target on their backs, and they are going to have a serious fight on their hands that does not seem to favor Russian forces.
Sure, Syria in 2015 is not Afghanistan in 1979, and one would think that the Russians have learned lessons from their painful past, but Putin seems to have drawn all the wrong lessons from the late Soviet period.
This is not to suggest that Washington should continue to wash its hands of Syria. There seems little chance that the Obama administration or the next one will commit (beyond general rhetoric) the United States to bringing about the end of the Assad regime, but they should do everything to help the refugees fleeing Syria’s hellish conflict. There seems to be no reason to match the Russians militarily there, however.
Everything in foreign relations is linked, and it is precisely because Russia is a major strategic threat and because of the Kremlin’s adventurism in Ukraine, which threatens NATO allies like Poland and the Baltic states, that I welcome Moscow’s coming entanglement in Syria. Let Putin bleed.
Read the original article on Council on Foreign Relations. Copyright 2015. Follow Council on Foreign Relations on Twitter.
Early September brought the newsthat the Russians were deploying military forces to Bassel al-Assad International Airport near Latakia on the Syrian coast.
The Aviationist website recentlyreproduced satellite imagery showing twenty-eight combat aircraft, including four Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole (air-to-air and ground interdiction) fighters, twelve Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes, and twelve Sukhoi Su-24 attack planes.
In addition, the Russians have deployed fifteen helicopters, nine tanks, three missile batteries, cargo planes, refueling aircraft, and about five hundred soldiers to the same airfield.
The Obama administration has not said much about the deployment, only that it was seeking clarification from Moscow.
Pentagon officials were generally mum last Friday after Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, saying only that they are watching the situation closely.
The administration’s critics and supporters have responded to these developments in ways one might expect—howling criticism or over rationalization justifying why the presence of Russian forces in Syria is actually no big deal.
They both have it wrong, though. Of course, the Russian buildup is a very big deal and marks a new, even more complicated and potentially dangerous phase in the Syrian conflict, but that is precisely why we should welcome it.
Over the weekend I heard former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband explain that the Russian deployment was a function of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s weakness, of which Moscow has become all too aware. Under these circumstances the deployment should be seen as an elaborate Russian maneuver to improve its negotiating position in the inevitable diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, which, while not including Assad himself, will have to include “regime elements.”
In Miliband’s estimation the Russians are ready to dump Assad in return for American flexibility on the nature of the post-Assad ruling coalition.
Miliband is hardly an outlier. I have heard or read variations of these claims on any number of occasions, and each time they ring hollow. They are interesting reflections of what we think the Russians would be doing if the Russians were us.
It reminds me of late February 2014 when all the smart kids were saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be so stupid as to take over Crimea and that he merely sought to pressure and manipulate Ukraine from the outside.
Those might be things that we would do, but they were never part of Putin’s playbook. Even as that big, creepy, crying bear was being pushed around the closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics and I was being told that the Russians were full of bluster and not much else, they were gassing up the tanks.
More directly, Moscow has been fairly clear about its intentions in Syria, no? According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s growing military presence in Syria is intendedto combat the self-declared Islamic State and defend the Syrian state.
Two caveats are in order here. First the Russians could be lying, but they really have no reason to dissimulate, confident that the United States is going to accept the Kremlin’s fait accomplijust as it has in Ukraine.
Second, Miliband may be correct; Russian statements have referred specifically to the “Syrian state” and not the Assad regime, which Kremlinologists of yore might interpret as an implicit nod to the confluence of Russian and American interest in a unitary Syrian polity. We’ll see.
All this is a long wind up to the idea that while the West should not exactly learn to love Russia’s intervention in Syria, the United States, Europeans, and the Gulf states might actually come to like it.
Moscow may think it is somehow calling Washington’s bluff in the fight against the Islamic State, but folks should separate out the Russian bluster and the political posturing of Obama administration opponents and supporters on Twitter and consider the serious implications of the Kremlin’s move.
The Russians just put themselves squarely in the middle of an extremely nasty, brutish civil war featuring a grab bag of extremist groups that includes the Islamic State, which would likely love to take a shot at the Russian military. If the reports of large numbers of Chechens filling the ranks of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces are accurate, it is payback time.
Those jihadists are arrayed against Moscow’s allies, a nefarious group that includes Hezbollah, Assad’s militias, what is left of the Syrian military, and agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
If the risks to the Russians in this environment are not clear, they should be. They are no longer an indirect party to the conflict, they have a huge target on their backs, and they are going to have a serious fight on their hands that does not seem to favor Russian forces.
Sure, Syria in 2015 is not Afghanistan in 1979, and one would think that the Russians have learned lessons from their painful past, but Putin seems to have drawn all the wrong lessons from the late Soviet period.
This is not to suggest that Washington should continue to wash its hands of Syria. There seems little chance that the Obama administration or the next one will commit (beyond general rhetoric) the United States to bringing about the end of the Assad regime, but they should do everything to help the refugees fleeing Syria’s hellish conflict. There seems to be no reason to match the Russians militarily there, however.
Everything in foreign relations is linked, and it is precisely because Russia is a major strategic threat and because of the Kremlin’s adventurism in Ukraine, which threatens NATO allies like Poland and the Baltic states, that I welcome Moscow’s coming entanglement in Syria. Let Putin bleed.
Read the original article on Council on Foreign Relations. Copyright 2015. Follow Council on Foreign Relations on Twitter.
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Russia is unfortunately not interested in "defeating" ISIS at all but only in keeping the Al-Assad regime in power and escalate the conflict in Syria and thus raise the price of oil as their economy is about to collapse due to the Western sanctions and low oil price. This is evident of them now bombing areas where ISIS are nowhere to be found. The longer the Al-Assad regime continues to be in power the stronger ISIS and likeminded groups will become. They don't understand that the removal of the criminal Al-Assad regime that has killed almost 200.000 (!) civilian Syrians is needed for any peace to emerge in Syria.
If they really are so determined to deal with terrorism why don't they deal with all the areas of Caucasus where a Russian soldier on his own would be killed and where they at most only rely on a few local informers or local dictators such as Kadyrov to keep law and order?
Instead of dealing with 1000's upon 1000's of pro-ISIS members inside Russia itself they are bombing poor peasants in Syria and civilians and the occasional rebel once in a while. No ISIS in sight.
They won't fool anyone but only people who desperately want to be fooled and Al-Assad fanboys.
If they had concentrated on bombing ISIS purely and realized that Al-Assad has no future in Syria we would probably all (or at least most of us and me) cheer for them.
Mark my words it will be another Afghanistan (not as painful but a political/economic defeat nevertheless on the long run) for them and USA and the GCC will team up again to punish them and bring them back to reality again. The GCC and USA + the entire Anti-Assad camp won't ignore this. Expect the insurgency in occupied Caucasus to grow in the very near future.
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BountyHunter
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Sure
shaheenmissile
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Yes and apart from your inherent stupidity being Indian,what's the funny thing about it?Sure
Serpentine
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One US option in Syria: Let Putin bleed
Early September brought the newsthat the Russians were deploying military forces to Bassel al-Assad International Airport near Latakia on the Syrian coast.
The Aviationist website recentlyreproduced satellite imagery showing twenty-eight combat aircraft, including four Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole (air-to-air and ground interdiction) fighters, twelve Sukhoi Su-25 attack planes, and twelve Sukhoi Su-24 attack planes.
In addition, the Russians have deployed fifteen helicopters, nine tanks, three missile batteries, cargo planes, refueling aircraft, and about five hundred soldiers to the same airfield.
The Obama administration has not said much about the deployment, only that it was seeking clarification from Moscow.
Pentagon officials were generally mum last Friday after Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, saying only that they are watching the situation closely.
The administration’s critics and supporters have responded to these developments in ways one might expect—howling criticism or over rationalization justifying why the presence of Russian forces in Syria is actually no big deal.
They both have it wrong, though. Of course, the Russian buildup is a very big deal and marks a new, even more complicated and potentially dangerous phase in the Syrian conflict, but that is precisely why we should welcome it.
Over the weekend I heard former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband explain that the Russian deployment was a function of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s weakness, of which Moscow has become all too aware. Under these circumstances the deployment should be seen as an elaborate Russian maneuver to improve its negotiating position in the inevitable diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, which, while not including Assad himself, will have to include “regime elements.”
StratforSatellite images of Russian military hardware in Syria's Bassel al-Assad air base.
In Miliband’s estimation the Russians are ready to dump Assad in return for American flexibility on the nature of the post-Assad ruling coalition.
Miliband is hardly an outlier. I have heard or read variations of these claims on any number of occasions, and each time they ring hollow. They are interesting reflections of what we think the Russians would be doing if the Russians were us.
It reminds me of late February 2014 when all the smart kids were saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be so stupid as to take over Crimea and that he merely sought to pressure and manipulate Ukraine from the outside.
Those might be things that we would do, but they were never part of Putin’s playbook. Even as that big, creepy, crying bear was being pushed around the closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics and I was being told that the Russians were full of bluster and not much else, they were gassing up the tanks.
More directly, Moscow has been fairly clear about its intentions in Syria, no? According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s growing military presence in Syria is intendedto combat the self-declared Islamic State and defend the Syrian state.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Two caveats are in order here. First the Russians could be lying, but they really have no reason to dissimulate, confident that the United States is going to accept the Kremlin’s fait accomplijust as it has in Ukraine.
Second, Miliband may be correct; Russian statements have referred specifically to the “Syrian state” and not the Assad regime, which Kremlinologists of yore might interpret as an implicit nod to the confluence of Russian and American interest in a unitary Syrian polity. We’ll see.
All this is a long wind up to the idea that while the West should not exactly learn to love Russia’s intervention in Syria, the United States, Europeans, and the Gulf states might actually come to like it.
Moscow may think it is somehow calling Washington’s bluff in the fight against the Islamic State, but folks should separate out the Russian bluster and the political posturing of Obama administration opponents and supporters on Twitter and consider the serious implications of the Kremlin’s move.
The Russians just put themselves squarely in the middle of an extremely nasty, brutish civil war featuring a grab bag of extremist groups that includes the Islamic State, which would likely love to take a shot at the Russian military. If the reports of large numbers of Chechens filling the ranks of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces are accurate, it is payback time.
Those jihadists are arrayed against Moscow’s allies, a nefarious group that includes Hezbollah, Assad’s militias, what is left of the Syrian military, and agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
AP Photo/militant social media account via AP videoChechen militants in ISIS will be anxious to go to war with Russia.
If the risks to the Russians in this environment are not clear, they should be. They are no longer an indirect party to the conflict, they have a huge target on their backs, and they are going to have a serious fight on their hands that does not seem to favor Russian forces.
Sure, Syria in 2015 is not Afghanistan in 1979, and one would think that the Russians have learned lessons from their painful past, but Putin seems to have drawn all the wrong lessons from the late Soviet period.
This is not to suggest that Washington should continue to wash its hands of Syria. There seems little chance that the Obama administration or the next one will commit (beyond general rhetoric) the United States to bringing about the end of the Assad regime, but they should do everything to help the refugees fleeing Syria’s hellish conflict. There seems to be no reason to match the Russians militarily there, however.
Everything in foreign relations is linked, and it is precisely because Russia is a major strategic threat and because of the Kremlin’s adventurism in Ukraine, which threatens NATO allies like Poland and the Baltic states, that I welcome Moscow’s coming entanglement in Syria. Let Putin bleed.
Read the original article on Council on Foreign Relations. Copyright 2015. Follow Council on Foreign Relations on Twitter.
Let Russia bleed while they won't have one single ground operation in Syria? Another BS article from Russia-hating western freaks on internet, which happen to be crawling everywhere these days thanks to the stage given to them by mainstream media.
Kurlang
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One question rings my mind again and again, what are the strategic objectives which russian wants to achieve with this active intervention. The point is that they have bluntly stood up against the U.S and Saudi interests in the ME. What are the short term and long term goals that they intend to fruit from.
Do they want to bog down the Americans as they got bog down into Afghanistan. (Frankly, I don't think so, but who knows)
Another important point, is what would be the reaction from immediate neighbors like Israel, Iran, and specially Turkey. How they are going to react to this fast and rapid changing political scenario.
@Viper0011.
Do they want to bog down the Americans as they got bog down into Afghanistan. (Frankly, I don't think so, but who knows)
Another important point, is what would be the reaction from immediate neighbors like Israel, Iran, and specially Turkey. How they are going to react to this fast and rapid changing political scenario.
@Viper0011.
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Mustang06
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Is that Tigr?
gau8av
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this is great, maybe the Syrian military can finally stop using barrel bombs too, now that the russians are dropping precision munitions on confirmed ISIS and other jihadi targets, and nobody knows better than the Syrian military where these rats are operating from.
Ceylal
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It does look a Russian made not a Tigr..
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First of all you are changing subject, that means u admit that this bombing was pure terror.
Israel does not use indiscriminate bombings. Thats why in 27 years of Intifadas and wars died tenfolds less than in 4 years of Assad war.
What is more worrying that if Russia in their first strike when al world eyes are at them murdered 40 civilians without hesitation, what they will start to do when everyone will get used, like they got used to Assad barrel bombs.
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