By Vestnik Kavkaza
Moscow insists that the violence in Syria should be stopped as soon as possible and that the settlement of the conflict should be political without foreign intervention passing by the Security Council of the UN.
“The situation in Syria, if, God forbid, there is a military strike, it will only aggravate the crisis from which, to put it mildly, we have been trying to come out of since 2008,” Army General Yuri Baluyevsky says. “I’d like to hope that we will solve the problem of Syria by political means. As I see it, today the main Russian military function is to carefully observe the situation. Of course, in the first place, it is the maintenance of the political conditions, of the proposals that we hear from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and specifically the president.”
“Of course, in any case, we will not fight,” Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, states. “There will probably be a definite demonstration of our capabilities, in the worst-case scenario. In my opinion, very active diplomatic, political action and political-military steps will be necessary in order to prevent a spread of the escalation of violence that will occur in the event of a U.S. strike against Syria and an escalation of the conflict beyond its borders. It is not such a long distance to our borders, to the borders of our immediate allies, and we know that as a matter of fact, when there is strike on Syria, and in general any action against Syria, the real target is always Iran. Of course, there is a certain risk that the neighboring countries may be involved, that Iran may be affected. Its interests are primarily affected here. Iran is observing the situation very carefully. Israel also is very active here. That’s why, perhaps, there is a need for a certain road map in case of the regional escalation of the conflict, in case military violence spills over, and the need for very serious action in order to prevent a negative impact from what is going on around us.”
“We have to imagine the potential medium- and long-term consequences of the military action by the U.S. and those who might join them,” Andrey Kokoshin, Head of the Department of World Politics, Moscow State University, thinks. “Indeed, Iran is an ally of Syria. Iran is very closely monitoring the situation. Iran has a complicated relationship with other countries in the region, particularly with Saudi Arabia. It's no secret that Iran has a nuclear program, which may at some point become a military nuclear program completely openly. For this to happen, there must be a political decision. Nuclear states appear only when a political decision is taken there, not just when there are the necessary scientific and technical capabilities. Iran has the scientific and technical capabilities in terms of nuclear weapons and a carrier of quite a large range, as we know. So I think that action in Syria is very likely to strengthen the position of those in the leadership of Iran who decide to go for the creation of its own nuclear weapons, especially since there is already one nuclear state in the region, Israel, and the American Navy, which also has nuclear weapons carriers are constantly present in the region, and thus also constitute a nuclear factor. Iran demonstrated restraint when Pakistan became a nuclear state, apparently keeping in mind that Pakistan's first complex relationship is with India. But we should not forget that quite possibly Saudi Arabia will want to become a nuclear state, following Iran. It does not have its own developed industrial capacity that would allow it to create nuclear weapons on its own, but there is evidence that Saudi Arabia at the time spent several billion dollars to subsidize the creation of a nuclear bomb in Pakistan. It has a very close relationship with Pakistan. The Pakistani military is constantly present in one way or another in Saudi Arabia. I heard a very authoritative opinion that Saudi Arabia literally needs two or three weeks to get its share of the nuclear weapons from Pakistan, for which they have already paid. Thus, those who plan military action against Syria may eventually have a very unpleasant situation at hand, a very unstable and very complicated nuclear configuration, which is extremely difficult to control. Together with the Americans we spent decades creating a situation of mutual strategic stability. Just imagine a polygon: Israel - Iran - Saudi Arabia - Pakistan, and Turkey might join as well. And further, there is the relationship between India and Pakistan.”
