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Purveyor

(29,876 posts)
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 01:06 AM Oct 2015

Putin Wants To Preserve Syria – This Is Not About Russia-US Relations

When the US and USSR were engaged in their proxy conflicts during the cold war – in Central America, in Africa, even in Afghanistan – there was always an ideological element and the forces of the two countries never confronted each other directly on the battlefield. The risk of a superpower conflagration was kept at one remove.

It is tempting to see the first Russian airstrikes in Syria and Russia’s recently increased military presence in and around Latakia as an old-style proxy conflict, shorn of its ideological aspect and replayed as raw geopolitics. On the one side are the US and its allies, including the UK, who have the ultimate objective of removing Bashar al-Assad, to which they have added a mission to turn back Islamic State. On the other side is Russia, determined not to lose its last remaining foothold in the Middle East to the west, and using the fight against Isis as a cover to keep its ally, Assad, in power.

Such an interpretation may be too simplistic and misread Russia’s motives. But it does not make the current situation, in the short-term at least, any less fraught with risk. On the contrary. Yesterday’s airstrikes by Russia, of which Washington received an hour’s notice via a Russian general in Baghdad, held out the very real possibility of an air clash by accident not design. No wonder the US swiftly agreed to top-level military talks with Russia about coordinating action in Syria.

Nor can it be excluded that this was one reason why president Vladimir Putin gave the order for the first airstrikes within 24 hours of the Russian parliament giving the political go-ahead. Russia wanted to show that it was an equal player with the US in the region, and that it was not going to fit into whatever Washington decreed. It wants a say.

If one interpretation of Russia’s action is a concern to maintain national dignity and not be seen to take orders from Washington, another could well be Putin’s desire for post-Soviet Russia to be treated as a state with global interests, not confined to a “mere” regional role in and around Ukraine. Russia’s involvement in Syria is, to be sure, a convenient distraction for the Russian public at a time when Moscow may be looking to disengage from Ukraine. But it is not just that.

more...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/01/putin-syria-russia-us-airstrikes

5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Putin Wants To Preserve Syria – This Is Not About Russia-US Relations (Original Post) Purveyor Oct 2015 OP
And I suppose Putin wants to preserve Ukraine? Nitram Oct 2015 #1
Message auto-removed Name removed Oct 2015 #2
welcome back, Go West Young Man! nt geek tragedy Oct 2015 #3
"ultimate objective of removing Bashar al-Assad" awoke_in_2003 Oct 2015 #4
Yes, we suck at regime change. Chan790 Oct 2015 #5

Nitram

(22,671 posts)
1. And I suppose Putin wants to preserve Ukraine?
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 09:50 AM
Oct 2015

Putin is playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship that risks a real world war.

Response to Purveyor (Original post)

 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
4. "ultimate objective of removing Bashar al-Assad"
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 07:58 PM
Oct 2015

And replace him with who? You think we would have learned after Iraq and Libya, but no.

 

Chan790

(20,176 posts)
5. Yes, we suck at regime change.
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 10:17 AM
Oct 2015

I think the hope/goal was that organic leadership would arise, much like we counted on it to rise in the other Arab Spring nations (and largely did elsewhere.) so that we wouldn't have to do the regime-change/police-action thing we aren't so hot at. (See: Iraq, Afghanistan.) Then...there wasn't organic leadership rise in Syria. Then...the moderate populace we counted on to insure that a moderate self-governing state ultimately result fled as Daesh filled the void.

So, yeah...we fucked this one up. Maybe we'll learn that we need to stop trying to shape the world to our desires.

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