Russia in Syria: More of the Same

Heiko Wimmen, Expert for the Middle East of the Berlin think-tank “Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Politik.” Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Russia in Syria: More of the Same

An alleged increase in Russian support for the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has created a flurry of media speculation over the past week. Quoting unnamed diplomats, intelligence sources and officials, some of these stories went as far as drawing parallels to the Kremlin’s takeover of Crimea, conjuring up whole air squadrons and “thousands of Russian military personal” route to the Middle East. A good part of these tall tales is most likely just that, and will be deflated before long. But there is still good reason to believe that Russia may indeed enhance its existing support for the Syrian regime in the weeks to come.

For such is the logic of proxy warfare: once your client is going down, you need to up your support. And plainly, the war has not been going too well for Damascus for a while. In the spring, the army incurred significant territorial losses in the northwestern Idlib province; on Wednesday, it finally evacuated the last airfield it controlled in that area. In the South, rebels are closing in on the provincial capital Deraa, after cutting off the last overland trade and transportation links to Jordan (and with it, the rest of the Arab world) in March. In the East, the Islamic State on Monday captured the last oilfield in Syria that had still remained under government control, striking out from its recent conquest Tadmor/Palmyra, where it continues to destroy world-famous archeological sites.

Much of these setbacks are owed to the fact that the countries propping up the rebels – first and foremost Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, under the approving eye of the United States – had, for their part, already resolved to set aside earlier differences, and ramped up their support earlier this year. While all these rebel backers pursue different objectives (very few of it related to democracy, or the milk of human kindness), the more immediate incentive was plain: squeezed on two sides by IS and the regime, and fighting each other more than any of the two, all their clients were losing ground. In late 2014, even the fall of the rebel-held parts of Aleppo appeared imminent, threatening a lethal blow to rebel moral. Instead, Turkish mediation and Saudi money helped forging a new coalition of some, perhaps moderate, and other, clearly not so moderate Islamist groups (including the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda) called the “Army of Conquest”, which turned the tide in the North. Meanwhile, in the South, joined American-Jordanian-Saudi efforts to cobble together and equip a fighting force that could be passed off as a “moderate” with slightly better credibility are finally creating results.

And so it will go on. As sanctions on Iran are lifted, Asad’s second major foreign patron will be able to extend further credit lines that allow him to feed and pay its remaining loyal servants, and deliver fuel to keep the war machine running. Teheran has made it abundantly clear that it considers the survival of the Syrian regime – though not necessarily of Asad himself – as vital to its interests and security, and there can be no doubt that it will do all it can to keep him afloat. What Iran sorely lacks itself, however, is advanced military hardware, which the Syrian army has traditionally obtained from Russia. New deliveries of Russian trucks, APCs, attack helicopters and transport airplanes, and logistic support to maintain and upgrade what airfields the regime still controls, would allow the remains of the Syrian army and its auxiliary forces to ward off further rebel advances, or at least slow them down considerably.

And this is also where it stops. For all the talk of “intervention”, there is really no credible military option for Russia in Syria that goes beyond helping Asad to keep his head over water as long as possible. The Syrian army is a broken force that no amount of hardware and advisors can put back together. And any Russian general deluded enough to seriously propose that a Russian expedition force should be fighting alongside Asad’s ragtag army in a conflict that far exceeds Afghanistan in ferocity and complexity would most likely lose his stripes and be confined to an asylum. Neither will the regional and international backers of the rebels succeed to transform their wayward Islamist clients into a fighting force that can capture Damascus, to not even mention the harrowing prospect of having them rule the country. As for intervention and “boots on the ground”, suffice to say that even the Turkish army, which is the only real fighting force in the neighborhood (apart from Israel, with even more reason to keep a low profile) has been reluctant to put so much as its little toe into the Syrian quagmire.

Thus, for everyone, the name of the game is more of the same, in hopes that the resolve of the other side(s) cracks first. For Russia, it is about delivering the message that you do not mess with Moscow in 2015 as you did in 1995 - a show of force already performed to great effect in Ukraine, Crimea and Georgia (Bashar Al-Asad’s outspoken support for the latter move has not been forgotten). And that regime change under the banner of democracy does not fly – not in Syria, nor in Turkmenistan, or Belarus, or wherever else Russian interests may be concerned. For Washington and its regional allies, it is about keeping the war grinding on until such time when a deal can be done that puts Iran in its place – with the major complication that there are serious differences (not least inside Washington itself) about what that place should be. For Syrians, apart from those who profit from the war and prey on the victims, what is left is to run or die.

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