“Putin apparently thinks Syria needs Russia more than the other way around,” said David W. Lesch, an Assad biographer and professor at Trinity University in San Antonio. “But Assad and his inner circle probably arrogantly think it is quite the reverse.”
.. Mr. Assad’s advisers believe not only that he has passed “the risky period” and will remain the president of Syria, she said in a recent interview, but also that his ability to “stand up to the whole world” will make him more prominent than ever as “a leader in the region.”
They insist that Russia is steadfast, she added, but they also hold an insurance card: their even closer relationship with Iran and their ability to juggle two very different allies.
“They are like a man with two wives,” said Ms. Khalil, best known for defending Saddam Hussein in his war crimes trial in Iraq. “There is something you like in each one.”
.. Over and over again in separate interviews, these people described a leadership that is expert in playing allies off one another; often refuses compromise, even when the chips appear to be down; and, if forced to make deals, delays and complicates them, playing for time until Mr. Assad’s situation improves.
.. Another problem, analysts say, is that Mr. Assad and his father before him deliberately created a system dependent on a single leader, without strong institutions or deputies. Some believe it is so brittle that even the slightest compromise is likely to bring it down — the assessment that led Mr. Assad to crack down on protesters rather than accede to political changes in the first place.
Putin Orders Start of Syria Withdrawal, Saying Goals Are Achieved
The Russian decision could signal a new confidence in Mr. Assad’s stability or an effort to pressure him to negotiate with his political adversaries — or both.
.. Mr. Putin has achieved many of his main goals: bringing Russia back to center stage as a global power; preventing, on principle, regime change by outside powers, particularly Western ones; gaining a stronger foothold in Syria; picking off Russian jihadists on the Syrian battlefield; and strengthening Mr. Assad... And it can be argued that Mr. Putin has little to lose: Russia can easily resume strikes from its base at will, and it can keep supporting the Syrian military and Mr. Assad’s other allies on the ground — Iranian-backed militias from Hezbollah, Iraq and elsewhere — with Russian weapons while floating cash to the Syrian government... the $3 million daily cost of its involvement in Syria while collapsing oil prices and economic sanctions are harming Russia’s financial health... Even in Geneva, the opposition spokesman, Salem al-Muslet, reflected that ambivalence, resenting Russia’s support for Mr. Assad but seeing Mr. Putin as the only figure who could force Mr. Assad to negotiate in earnest.
Obama Is Not a Realist
He’s an isolationist with drones and special-operations forces.
.. “You could call me a realist in believing we can’t relieve all the world’s misery,” Obama muses to Goldberg.
.. For Obama, as Goldberg paraphrases No. 44, “the Middle East is no longer terribly important to American interests”; even if it were, “an American president could do little to make it a better place.”
.. A realist knows that distant threats, if ignored, can turn into direct ones. Hence, the “precautionary principle”—better to act than wait in the face of risks not fully known—that is so dear to climate warriors like Obama serves as another pillar of the realist faith.
.. Obama pulled back and invited the Russians in, never mind that Henry Kissinger had essentially kicked them out of the Middle East in the 1970s—pushing them out of Egypt, Russia’s main stronghold in the region, by bringing then-President Anwar al-Sadat into the American camp. Mr. Putin was delighted to oblige Mr. Obama, and there went 40 years of American primacy in the world’s most critical arena.
.. This is what happens when U.S.-made vacuums beckon. Now, realists don’t haveto fight every battle. The Brits did nicely as the “offshore balancer” who engineered the coalitions that laid low the hegemonist du jour, from Habsburg to Hitler.
..“Free riders aggravate me,” he tells Goldberg, betraying a grievous misunderstanding of what it means to be the world’s No. 1. A measure of free-riding is a given whenever a very strong power consorts with a bunch of weaker ones.
.. Even Israel has struck a separate deal with Mr. Putin: We’ll let you prosecute your air war against America’s anti-Assad allies, if you don’t interfere with our attacks against Hezbollah’s arms pipeline from Iran to Lebanon.
.. Nor do you have to grow up in gangland to know that street cred in the global arena depends on a reputation for violence that will render force unnecessary.
.. “Obama believes that history has sides”—this is how Goldberg sums up the president’s faith. “America’s adversaries—and some of its putative allies—have situated themselves on the wrong one, a place where tribalism, fundamentalism, sectarianism, and militarism still flourish. What they don’t understand is that history is bending in his direction.”
.. This is not grand strategy. It is religion. Yet the central myths of Judeo-Christianity are the Pharaonic Slavery and the Crucifixion. They warn that tragedy comes before redemption.
The War of Western Failures: Hopes for Syria Fall with Aleppo
Every two or three hours, warplanes attack the city, aiming at everything that hasn’t yet been destroyed, including apartment buildings, schools and clinics. Often, they use cluster bombs, which have been banned internationally.
.. The regime, he says, has targeted the hospital five times in the past several years, but always missed. “The Russian bombardment, though, is very accurate.”
.. Syrian President Bashar Assad’s calculation seems to be that once the rebels are destroyed, only the regime and Islamic State would be left — and no other alternatives. But the Sunnis, which have long been in the majority in Syria, aren’t likely to throw their support behind an Alawite-Shiite Assad regime. Syria would face years of Somalia-like failed state status.
.. Moscow has targeted exactly those rebels that the West had hoped would fight IS.
.. In addition, his brutal operation has driven tens of thousands of people to take flight, thus intensifying the conflict between the EU and Turkey, dividing Europe even further and propelling the Continent’s right-wing populist parties to unprecedented heights. Those are all desired side-effects that conform to Moscow’s calculus: Everything that hurts Europe makes Russia stronger.
Berlin, too, has become convinced that Putin’s involvement in Syria is about more than merely providing support for his ally Assad — and about more than just the Middle East. For Putin, it’s about Europe, about ending the sanctions and about recognition of Russia’s zone of influence. “Putin is intentionally aggravating the refugee crisis in order to destabilize the EU.
.. Putin is now the most powerful man in Damascus and he appears to be following a strategy similar to the one he once employed in Chechnya: destroy everything until there are no more people left, there is no more resistance and no political alternative. Then he is free to install a leader of his choosing.
.. Turkey has already absorbed over 2.5 million refugees, but Erdogan no longer wants to take any more Syrians into the country. His reasoning has more to do with forcing political concessions from Europe than with fears that his country will be overwhelmed. Although Brussels has approved €3 billion in aid to Ankara for dealing with the refugee crisis in the country, Turkish politicians have been saying for some time now that they consider this sum to be too low.
.. The greatest risk right now, though, is that of a direct confrontation between Turkey and Russia. After Turkey shot down the Russian warplane in November, Moscow moved to increase air defenses so heavily in Syria that it would now be extremely difficult for Ankara to intervene in the hostilities taking place next door
.. It is very clear at this point that the US has no strategy beyond its half-hearted efforts to provide training and arms to rebels — and to otherwise rely on negotiations. But none of this has born any fruit, as events in early February demonstrated.