Juan Cole: "Revenge of the Bear: Russia Strikes Back in Syria"

[Comrade Grumpy]

An interesting take on the geopolitics of the Syrian crisis by the esteemed Dr. Cole.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/revenge_of_the_bear_russia_strikes_back_in_syria_20130521/

President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has drawn a line in the sand over Syria, the government of which he is determined to protect from overthrow. Not since the end of the Cold War in 1991 has the Russian Bear asserted itself so forcefully beyond its borders in support of claims on great power status. In essence, Russia is attempting to play the role in Syria that France did in Algeria in the 1990s, of supporting the military government against rebels, many of them linked to political Islam. France and its allies prevailed, at the cost of some 150,000 dead. Can Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pull off the same sort of victory?

Even as Damascus pushes back against the rebels militarily, Putin has swung into action on the international and regional stages. The Russian government persuaded U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to support an international conference aimed at a negotiated settlement. Putin upbraided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his country’s air attacks on Damascus. Moscow is sending sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries, anti-submarine missiles and other munitions to beleaguered Assad, and has just announced that 12 Russian warships will patrol the Mediterranean. The Russian actions have raised alarums in Tel Aviv and Washington, even as they have been praised in Damascus and Tehran.

The Syrian regime has been on a military roll in the past few weeks. It has made a bloody push into the hinterlands of Damascus, fortifying the capital. With Hezbollah support, it has assaulted the rebel-held Qusair region near northern Lebanon, an important smuggling route for the rebels and the key to the central city of Homs. The Baath government needs to keep Homs in order for Russia to resupply the capital via the Syrian port of Latakia on the Mediterranean. The Syrian government’s victories would not have been possible without Russian and Iranian help.

Regionally, a Moscow-Tehran axis has formed around Syria that is resisting Qatari and Saudi backing for the rebels. The increasing dominance of rebel fighting forces in the north by radical groups such as the al-Nusra Front, which has openly affiliated itself with al-Qaida, has resulted in a falloff of support for the revolution even in Saudi Arabia. Most Syrians who oppose the government are not radicals or even fundamentalists, but the latter have had the best record of military victories. Russian characterizations of the rebels as radical terrorists are a form of war propaganda; however, they have been effective. The Saudi and Jordanian plan to create a less radical southern opposition front at Deraa has met with a setback, since the regime recaptured that city last week. Doha and Riyadh are reeling from the Russia-backed counteroffensive.

<snip>

Much more at link. Worth reading.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. More from the article:

"The momentum of the Syrian rebels has palpably slowed in the last month, as Putin’s riposte has stiffened the resolve in Damascus and given its military the wherewithal to regain territory. The Russian president is weaving a protective web around his client, fending off the Wahhabi winds of Muslim fundamentalism blowing from the Arabian Peninsula. He has also pushed back against opportunistic Israeli intervention, worried that it might further destabilize Damascus. At the same time, he has impressed on Washington the need for a negotiated settlement, an idea that President Obama, long skittish about sending troops into further possible Middle East quagmires, has begun to tolerate. Putin’s supply of powerful new weapons systems to Assad’s military, and his dispatch of warships from the Russian Pacific fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, make clear that the full force of Russian military might is, if need be, at the service of its Baath client. Putin’s gambit may or may not prove successful, but he is indisputably demonstrating that the age of the sole superpower and of American unilateralism is passing in favor of a multipolar world."

[Junkdrawer]

2. And here I thought the Cold War was part of the dustbin of History....

Look at the bright side: The Pentagon may not need the ginned-up War on Terror to justify its budgets soon.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. I guess you missed the expansion of NATO and the US bases in Central Asia.

Not to mention Afghanistan, where the West turns a blind eye to all that opium ending up in the veins of Russian junkies.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Not at all. Do you think I think the Cold War was *primarily* the fault of the USSR?

From the DU archives:

Creating Terror: by Nafeez Ahmed

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1782204&mesg_id=1791379

posted the shit out of it a while back.

The War on Truth sits (unread ) on my bookshelf.

[Comrade Grumpy]

9. I had no opinion on the matter.

[byeya]

4. I don't think it's in the US's interest to have a Taliban style regime in Syria and it seems

Russia doesn't either.
Restart the Cold War to defend Islamicists: Not for me.
Not for me either is the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia(or Syria) but with the incestuous relationship with the House of Saud, the US has more to gain from regime change there(or preferably ending the incestuous relationship).

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. I know this isn't as compelling as dead dogs, happy kittehs, and teenage sex, but...

...I'm gonna kick it back up to the top anyway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. One more thing that Cole assumes the reader knows.

Alas most really don't.

Syria is the last real client state for Russia in the ME. They won't let go easy.

It is...in many ways...a chess game, with real people dying.

Oh and it s not restarting the Cold War...yet...but it s a proxy war

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Yeah, it's a proxy war, and we sure have us some strange bedfellows.

Per the president, we're fighting Islamic extremism from the Maghreb to Pakistan. At the same time, our de facto allies in the Syrian civil war--the Saudis, Qatar--are financing Islamic extremism. Go figger.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. It is as it always was

The enemy of my enemy...and all that

[roamer65]

11. This will morph into a regional ME war...then it will become...

World War III.

I have no doubt of that now. Feels an awful lot like what my great uncle said of 1937 or 1938. He said you could feel it coming. Once told me he was actually surprised we stayed out of it till late 1941.