Two noteworthy events have occurred regarding Syria recently that are likely to have a wider echo in Russia-US relations, and impact not just the political dynamics in West Asia but also in Europe. There may even be in this an even broader message for the international community.
Not long ago President Obama taunted Putin’s Russia as a “regional” power. The riposte was not long in coming. Last Thursday, Russia fired long-range cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea that traversed 1,500 kilometres to hit targets in ISIS-controlled areas in Syria.
This was the first event of note which followed a week-long Russian air campaign from its Latakia base that targeted some ISIS centres but apparently was aimed at the West-trained, so-called moderate fighters who have been trying to eject President Bashar al-Assad from power since March 2011. In fact, these units in which the US and its European allies, particularly France and Britain, invested so much militarily, found themselves easily overrun by the local Al Qaeda affiliate, the al-Nusra front, which has wrested the West-supplied weapons from the moderates.
The other signal development occurred on Friday when the Obama administration announced the abandoning of a $500-million project to set up a rebel force to fight the al-Assad regime, indicating the project — which aspired to train 5,000 men in the first year (since last December) and about 15,000 in three years — was going nowhere. In a sense, this is an admission of the defeat of political and military interventionism on the part of Washington.
In Syria, it seemed President Obama was unable to make up his mind whether his primary purpose was to depose President Assad and replace him with a pliant figurehead, or to do what he can to work to finish off the ISIS. In recent months the latter objective seemed to acquire greater salience. But sailing in two boats can hardly be said to constitute a viable strategy.
The President has come under criticism within the US — and not only from political opponents — for his unsustainable vision in dealing with the Syria situation which easily collapsed into the urgent need to combat the extremism projected by ISIS. In Europe, Mr Obama has even been criticised for seeking to belittle Russia instead of presenting an effective diplomatic strategy to get it to take a step back in Ukraine and, if possible, to seek collaboration with Moscow in dealing with extremism in the Iraq-Syria belt where ISIS has emerged as force to reckon with. The Russian leadership, on the other hand, has proclaimed its objective to fight ISIS effectively.
