Russia Isn't Getting the Recognition It Deserves on Syria
Russia Isn't Getting the Recognition It Deserves on Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Sergei Chirikov / AP)
At a time when the credibility of the United States as either an unbiased
actor or reliable ally lies in tatters, Russia has emerged as the one major
power whose loyalty to its allies is unquestioned, and whose ability to
serve as an honest broker between seemingly intractable opponents is
unmatched.
If there is to be peace in Syria, it will be largely due to the patient
efforts of Moscow employing deft negotiation, backed up as needed by
military force, to shape conditions conducive for a political solution to a
violent problem. If ever there was a primer for the art of diplomacy, the
experience of Russia in Syria from 2011 to the present is it.
Like the rest of the world, Russia was caught off guard by the so-called
Arab Spring that swept through the Middle East and North Africa in
2010-2011, forced to watch from the sidelines as the old order in Tunisia
and Egypt was swept aside by popular discontent. While publicly supporting
the peaceful transition of power in Tunis and Cairo, in private the Russian
government watched the events unfolding in Egypt and the Maghreb with
trepidation, concerned that the social and political transformations
underway were a continuation of the kind of Western-backed "color
revolutions" that had occurred previously in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003)
and Ukraine (2004).
When, in early 2011, the Arab Spring expanded into Libya, threatening the
rule of longtime Russian client Moammar Gadhafi, Russia initially supported
the creation of a U.N.-backed no-fly zone for humanitarian purposes, only to
watch in frustration as the U.S. and NATO used it as a vehicle to launch a
concerted air campaign in a successful bid to drive Gadhafi from power.
By the time Syria found itself confronting popular demonstrations against
the rule of President Bashar Assad, Russia-still struggling to understand
the root cause of the unrest-had become wary of the playbook being employed
by the U.S. and NATO in response. While Russia was critical of the violence
used by the Assad government in responding to the anti-government
demonstrations in the spring of 2011, it blocked efforts by the U.S. and
Europe to impose economic sanctions against the Syrian government, viewing
them as little more than the initial salvo of a broader effort to achieve
regime change in Damascus using the Libyan model.
Moscow's refusal to help facilitate that Western-sponsored regime change,
however, did not translate into unequivocal support for the continued rule
of Assad. Russia supported the appointment of former U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan to head up a process for bringing a peaceful resolution to the
Syrian crisis, and endorsed Annan's six-point peace plan, put forward in
March 2012, which included the possibility of a peaceful transition of power
away from Assad.
At the same time Russia was promoting a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian
crisis, the U.S. was spearheading a covert program to provide weapons and
equipment to anti-Assad forces, funneling shipments from Libya through
Turkey and into rebel-controlled areas of Syria. This CIA-run effort, which
eventually morphed into a formal operation known as Timber Sycamore, helped
fuel an increase in the level of violence inside Syria that made it
impossible for the Assad government to fully implement the Annan plan. The
inevitable collapse of the Annan initiative was used by the U.S. and its
European allies to call for U.N. sanctions against Syria, which were again
rejected by Russia.
While Russia continued to call for a political solution to the Syrian crisis
that allowed for the potential of Assad being replaced, it insisted that
this decision would be made by a process that included the Syrian
government, as opposed to the U.S. demand that Assad must first step down.
The Military Solution
The failed Annan initiative was replaced by a renewed U.N.-sponsored
process, known as Geneva II, headed by Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian
diplomat with extensive U.N. experience. The Geneva process stalled as
Brahimi sought to bridge the gap between the U.S.-backed Syrian
opposition-which insisted upon Assad's resignation as a precondition to any
talks about the future of Syria-and Russia, which continued to insist that
the Assad government have a voice in determining Syria's future.
Complicating these talks was the escalation of violence inside Syria, where
anti-Assad forces, building upon the massive amount of military aid received
from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states, aggressively pushed
for a military victory that would moot the Geneva II process.
By June 2013 the situation had devolved to the point that the U.S., citing
allegations that the Syrian government was using a nerve agent against rebel
forces, was considering the establishment of no-fly zones in northern Syria
and along the Jordanian border. While sold as a humanitarian move designed
to create safe zones for Syrian civilians fleeing the fighting, the real
purpose of these zones was to carve out large sections of Syrian territory
where the opposition could organize and prepare for war under the umbrella
of U.S. air power without fear of Syrian government retaliation.
The concept of Syria's chemical weapons being used by the U.S. to justify
military action against the Syrian government was not hypothetical. In 2012,
President Barack Obama had declared that any use of chemical weapons by the
Syrian government would be considered a "red line," forcing the U.S. to act.
When, in August 2013, a major chemical weapons incident occurred in Ghouta
(conclusive attribution for the attack does not exist; the U.S. and NATO
contend that the Syrian government was behind the attacks, which the
Russians and the Syrian government claim were carried out by anti-Assad
opposition for the purpose of compelling U.S. intervention), it looked like
the U.S. would step in.
Committing to a larger war in Syria was not a politically popular move in
the U.S., given the recent experience in Iraq, and when Obama met with
Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg,
Russia, in September 2013, the Russians suggested a solution-the disarmament
of Syrian chemical weapons under the supervision of the Organization for the
Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). When Secretary of State John Kerry
opened the door to that possibility, Russia and Syria jumped on the
opportunity, paving the way for one of the great disarmament achievements of
modern times, an action that won the OPCW the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013.
The disarmament of Syria's chemical weapons was a huge success, for which
Russia received little recognition, despite the major role it played in
conceiving and overseeing its implementation. Russia had hoped that the
disarmament process could lead to the establishment of international
confidence in the Assad government that would translate into a diplomatic
breakthrough in Geneva. This was not to be; a major peace conference planned
for 2014 collapsed, and efforts to revive the failed talks were sidelined by
the escalation of violence in Syria, as the armed opposition, sensing
victory, pressed its attacks on the Syrian government.
The situation in Syria was further complicated when, in 2013, the
organization formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq renamed itself the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria, and started carving out a so-called caliphate from
the ungovernable expanses of eastern Syria and western Iraq. Having
established its capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Islamic State launched
a dramatic offensive in early 2014, capturing large swaths of territory in
both Syria and Iraq, including the Iraqi city of Mosul. By 2015, the Syrian
government, under pressure from anti-Assad rebels and the forces of Islamic
State, was on the brink of collapse.
The consequences of the loss of Syria to forces dominated by radical Islamic
ideology do not seem to have been fully considered by those in the West,
such as the U.S. and its European allies, which were funneling military aid
to the rebel forces. For Russia, however, which had its own experiences with
Muslim separatist movements in the Caucasus region, such a result was deemed
an existential threat, with thousands of Russian citizens fighting on the
side of Islamic State and the anti-Assad opposition who would logically seek
to return to Russia to continue the struggle once victory had been achieved
in Syria. In September 2015, Putin urged the Russian Parliament to approve
the intervention of the Russian military on the side of the Syrian
government. The Parliament passed the resolution, thus beginning one of the
most successful military interventions in modern times.
The impact of the Russian intervention was as dramatic as it was decisive.
Almost immediately, the Russian air force helped turn the tide on the field
of battle, allowing the Syrian army to launch attacks against both the
anti-Assad opposition and Islamic State after years of losing ground. The
Russian intervention helped pave the way for the commitment by Hezbollah and
Iran of tens of thousands of ground troops who helped tipped the scale in
favor of the Syrian government. The presence of Russian forces nipped in the
bud all talk of Western military intervention and created the conditions for
the Syrian government to eventually recapture much of the territory it had
lost to Islamic State and the anti-Assad rebels.
Unheralded Peacemaker
The connection between military action and diplomacy is a delicate one. For
some nations, like the United States, diplomacy is but a front for
facilitating military action-the efforts to secure a U.N. Security Council
resolution on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq stand as a prime example.
For Russia, however, the decision to intervene militarily in Syria was not
seen as an end unto itself, but rather as the means by which Russia could
shape the political landscape in such a manner as to make a political
solution realistic. From the Russian perspective, the Geneva II process was
an empty shell, having been hijacked by Saudi Arabia and its anti-Assad
proxies.
In January 2017, Russia took the diplomatic offensive, initiating its own
peace process through a series of summits held in the Kazakh capital of
Astana. This process, which brought together Turkey, the Syrian government
and Iran, together with Russia, quickly supplanted the Geneva II talks as
the most viable vehicle for achieving a peaceful resolution to the Syrian
conflict. By directly linking diplomatic talks with the fighting on the
ground, the Astana process had a relevance that Geneva II lacked. For its
part, Russia was able to woo Turkey away from insisting that Assad must
leave, to a stance that recognized the territorial integrity of the Syrian
nation, and a recognition that Assad was the legitimate leader of Syria, at
least for the time being. The Astana process was lengthy and experienced its
share of ups and downs. But today it serves as the foundation of a peace
process that, unlike any of its predecessors, has a real chance of success.
Bridging the gap between the finesse of diplomacy and the brutal violence of
military action is one of the most difficult tasks imaginable. For its part,
the United Nations has undertaken so-called peacekeeping operations with
mixed effect. In recognition of the importance and difficulty of this kind
of work, the Nobel Committee awarded the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize to the U.N.
Peacekeepers. When the diplomatic solutions reached in Astana needed to be
implemented in Syria, Russia turned to the most unlikely source for turning
objectives into reality: the Russian military police. A relatively new
entity in the Russian military establishment, formed only in 2012, the
military police were tasked with a wide range of missions, including convoy
protection, area security, restoring law and order and resettlement
operations.
In late 2016, as the Syrian army was positioned to recapture the city of
Aleppo from rebel forces, Russia deployed a battalion of military police to
Syria. The mission of these troops was not to engage in frontline fighting,
but rather to restore law and order and win the trust and confidence of a
civilian population wary of the potential for retaliation at the hands of
the victorious Syrian army.
By all accounts, the Russian military police performed admirably, and soon
the Russian ministry of defense dispatched more battalions of these new
peacekeepers, who quickly established a reputation of being fair arbiters of
the many cease-fire agreements brokered through the Astana process. The
Russian military police were ubiquitous, whether policing the no-man's land
separating warring parties, escorting convoys of rebel fighters and their
families to safe zones or providing security for OPCW inspectors.
The final phases of the Syrian conflict are playing out in northern Syria
today. The last vestiges of the anti-Assad opposition, having been taken
over by al-Qaida, are dug in in their final bastion in Idlib Province, their
ultimate defeat at the hands of the combined Russian-Syrian armed forces all
but assured. The American intervention in northeastern Syria, begun in 2015
as a means of confronting and defeating Islamic State but continued and
expanded in 2017 as a vehicle for destabilizing the Assad government, has
imploded in the face of a geopolitical reality in transition, facilitated in
large part by the combined forces of Russian diplomacy in Astana and
Russian-led military action on the ground in Syria.
By successfully wooing Turkey away from the U.S., Russia has dictated the
reality on the ground in Syria, greenlighting a Turkish incursion that put
the American forces deployed there in an impossible situation, prompting
their evacuation. While the U.S. continues to maintain a military presence
in Syria, occupying a border crossing point at Tanf and a series of military
positions along the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in order to secure
nearby Syrian oil fields, the ability of the U.S. to logistically sustain
this force is doubtful, making its eventual withdrawal from Syria
inevitable.
Moreover, by compelling an American withdrawal from northeastern Syria,
Russia broke the back of the U.S.-supported Kurdish autonomous entity known
as Rojava, and in doing so prevented a larger war between Turkey, the Kurds
and the U.S.
In greenlighting the Turkish incursion into northern Syria, the Russians
invoked the 1998 Adana Treaty, which guarantees the sovereign inviolability
of Syria's borders. The processes involved in stabilizing the Turkish-Syrian
border, defeating the anti-Assad forces in Idlib, evicting the Americans
from Syrian soil, and integrating the Kurds into a future Syrian government
are lengthy, complex and not necessarily assured of a positive outcome. One
thing is certain, however: The prospects for peace in Syria are greater
today than at any time since 2011. And the fact that Russia has deployed
even more battalions of its military police to Syria to oversee
implementation of the current cease-fire bodes well for the prospects of
success.
Despite literally salvaging victory from the jaws of defeat, the scope of
the Russian accomplishment in Syria is muted in the United States, thanks to
rampant Russophobia that has insinuated itself into every aspect of the
domestic political discourse. Under normal circumstances, the Russian
accomplishment in Syria would have been deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize, if
not for the Russian diplomats and leaders who oversaw the effort to forge
peace from the furnace of war, then at least for the Russian military police
whose actions in Syria embody the very definition of humanitarian
peacekeeping.
Over time, international historians will come to appreciate what Russia
accomplished in Syria, potentially ending a sectarian conflict that could
easily have served as the foundation for a decades-long conflagration with
regional and global consequences.
Whether American historians will ever be capable of doing the same is
unknown. But this much is true: In the years to come, children will be born
of parents whose lives were not terminated or otherwise destroyed by a
larger Syrian conflict that almost assuredly would have transpired if not
for the honest broker services provided by Russia. Intentionally or not,
Russian diplomacy prevented the United States from embarking on a foreign
policy disaster of its own making. While it is highly doubtful that
Americans will ever muster the moral fortitude to say so publicly, those who
know the truth should find the time to whisper, "Thanks, Putin," between the
barrage of anti-Russian propaganda that floods the American mainstream media
today.
Like it or not, in Syria, the Russians saved us from ourselves.
Scott Ritter
Contributor
Scott Ritter spent more than a dozen years in the intelligence field,
beginning in 1985 as a ground intelligence officer with the US Marine Corps,
where he served with the Marine Corps component of the Rapid.
