As the Times noted in a survey of the candidates’ comments even before the Paris attacks, they seem to treat “no-fly” as a cue for toughness. The piece quoted Bush, when asked about the potential for a conflict with Russia, as saying, “Well, maybe Russia shouldn’t want to be in conflict with us.” Often, the talk descends to some version of a line that Chris Christie delivered last month: “My first phone call would be to Vladimir, and I’d say to him, ‘Listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone.’ ” But, if Vladimir shrugged, what would each of them do next? For that matter, what happens if American special-operations forces encounter Russian forces? Or a Russian pilot is held by rebels America supports?
The Rubble-Strewn Road to Damascus
After independence from France, following the Second World War, the country went through twenty coups in twenty-one years—some successful, some not—until Hafez al-Assad, a former Air Force general, seized power, in 1970. He was initially embraced, at home and abroad.
.. Neither peace nor war has ever had a chance in the Middle East without Syria’s participation.
.. Meanwhile, the destruction mounts, thanks to the weaponry of the Assad government, an array of jihadi extremists, and more than a thousand militias, ..
.. Last year, I watched from a hillside overlooking the town of Kobani, on the Turkish border, as American warplanes dumped tens of millions of dollars of bombs to support a Kurdish militia fighting ISIS. The Kurds took the town back in January. It was the Islamic State’s first big defeat in Syria. But Kobani was left in ruins. Today, it still doesn’t have electricity; its economy is dead. The price tag just to rebuild the town is estimated at six billion dollars, the Washington Post reported this month. Many of its forty thousand residents, now refugees elsewhere, refuse to return.
.. There is no clear end to the fighting in sight, and estimates of the cost of national reconstruction are already nearing three hundred billion dollars—roughly eight times what the United States committed to help reconstruct Iraq. Even if that money is spent, the larger question remains: Can a population so divided ever forge a stable political system that doesn’t entail a dictatorship?
How America can counter Putin’s moves in Syria
The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what he wants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition of stability. He is defending Russia’s interests by keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgent group that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow.
.. President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry say that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. That is true, but Moscow understands that diplomacy follows the facts on the ground, not the other way around. Russia and Iran are creating favorable facts. Once this military intervention has run its course, expect a peace proposal from Moscow that reflects its interests, including securing the Russian military base at Tartus.
We should not forget that Moscow’s definition of success is not the same as ours. The Russians have shown a willingness to accept and even encourage the creation of so-called failed states and frozen conflicts from Georgia to Moldova to Ukraine. Why should Syria be any different? If Moscow’s “people” can govern only a part of the state but make it impossible for anyone else to govern the rest of it — so be it.
.. When is the last time you bought a Russian product that wasn’t petroleum?
.. The last time the Russians regretted a foreign adventure was Afghanistan. But that didn’t happen until Ronald Reagan armed the Afghan mujahideen with Stinger missiles that started blowing Russian warplanes and helicopters out of the sky. Only then did an exhausted Soviet Union led by Mikhail Gorbachev, anxious to make accommodation with the West, decide that the Afghan adventure wasn’t worth it.
.. Stop saying that we want to better understand Russian motives. The Russians know their objective very well: Secure their interests in the Middle East by any means necessary. What’s not clear about that?
Defeating ISIS: The Board Game
Everyone with a stake in Middle Eastern geopolitics publicly declares that ISIS must be defeated. Yet opinions range widely on how this should be achieved.
Saudi Arabia, for example, believes ISIS cannot be defeated unless Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is removed from power. Turkey has just convinced NATO nations that the war against ISIS can only be won if Turkey’s traditional Kurdish opponents are neutralized first. Israel sees only one way to defeat ISIS: destroy Iran’s nuclear program and clip its wings regionally.