Russia's intervention in Syria brings Obama's dilemma to the fore
An aggressive Russian military intervention in Syria has placed Barack Obama’s policy for one of the world’s most devastating conflicts at a crossroads.
Russia’s military resurgence in the Middle East comes as the White
House’s own military contribution to the Syrian civil war is collapsing,
something even Obama’s former aides are acknowledging. The question now
facing Obama is whether he will cut his losses in Syria, an
intervention he has never wanted, and leave Vladimir Putin holding the bag.
Putin’s military gambit in Syria is the inverse of Obama’s. It has
been rapid where Obama’s is belated, decisive where Obama’s is
tentative, and focused where Obama’s is diffuse. What similarities exist
concern the two countries’ euphemistic description of their
involvement: Russia
is claiming an operation against the Islamic State while actually
attacking enemies of client Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US is bombing
Isis in Syria while treating the country as peripheral to a central
conflict in neighboring Iraq.
Russia’s inaugural airstrikes on Wednesday
– the culmination of a monthlong buildup in the western airbase of
Latakia – undermined days’ worth of talk from Obama and Putin about
cooperation in the conflict. Pentagon officials fumed at a call from the
Russians to ground its own warplanes even though Russia targeted an
area further west than the US bombing campaign. A day after the Pentagon
spoke about “deconflicting” air operations, it defiantly declared that it would continue its own strikes.
After Putin sent approximately 30 warplanes to Latakia, US officials publicly declared themselves confused
by Russian intentions. Putin clarified them to 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Asked if his true intentions were to bolster Assad rather than eradicate
Isis, Putin answered: “Well, you’re right.”
US officials said on Wednesday that they were still working to
determine whom the Russian strikes hit, although early indications
suggested a US-backed militant group was bombed.
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Wearing
down the US-backed Syrian militants appears easy. Gone are the
Pentagon’s 2014 assurances that it would field a 5,000-strong ground
force of Syrian “moderate” rebels by now; such comments were replaced
with a dramatic admission earlier this month that it has yielded only a handful.
Pentagon assurances about the parlous state of its Syrian proxies are
in doubt: within a week, it initially denied and then conceded that one
group provided US equipment to al-Qaida in Syria and that it has paused
the process of adding new recruits.
One reason behind the minimal enlistments is the goal of the US
project: not to fight Assad, but instead to fight Isis, which many
Syrians consider a lesser priority. Amid fierce criticism from
congressional hawks, who argue that defeating Isis means first defeating
Assad, Obama has drawn sharp limits on expanding the goal of US
involvement. He has balked at using US warplanes to patrol a “safe zone”
corridor for Syrian civilians, and thus far refrained from using air
power to protect rebel groups from Assad’s helicopter-launched barrel
bombs.
If the US approach to Syrian rebels is tentative, its approach to
Assad is rhetorical. Obama consistently calls for Assad to relinquish
power; Assad consistently declines. After reaping minimal results on
both fronts of its bifurcated policy, the administration is currently
reviewing its Syria initiatives to determine if an alternative ought to
be adopted.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, may be gesturing towards an
option. In the past several days, Kerry met with representatives of
Assad’s patrons, Russia and Iran, seemingly to determine if a brokered
endgame for the conflict is achievable. A US official, briefing on
Kerry’s Sunday meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said the
two diplomats discussed the prospects “to get back to the conversation about a way forward on a political transition”.
Speculation is rife that Obama will pivot to such a diplomatic
settlement. His speech to the United Nations on Monday included a line
about a “managed transition” in Syria to an “inclusive” post-Assad
government. It followed a provocative argument from a former White House
Syria aide endorsing a “messy compromise” that can accept deferring Assad’s ultimate fate.
The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee on Wednesday
denounced Russia’s bombing as undermining “pressure on the regime and
its supporters [that] may have finally led to a negotiated end to the
conflict”. An alternative interpretation is that Russia’s bombing aims
to strengthen Assad’s hand ahead of any such negotiation and, as a
fallback, preserve Russian influence in a post-Assad Syria. Russia may
indeed seek an end to the conflict – just one that occurs on Assad and
Moscow’s terms.
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Russian inentions and results are two different things. The country
may not be able to broker an accord at all; it may also fail at
suppressing Isis in Syria, a necessary objective for the viability of
any Russian-backed Syrian government, with or without Assad. The perils
of both objectives – a bloody quagmire – are the sources of Obama’s
hesitation in Syria. Pentagon officials cited in the Daily Beast seemed
almost relieved that the Russians would risk entangling themselves.
Yet Russian entanglement in Syria does not mean US extrication, even
if that is Obama’s goal. Putin has done nothing to indicate Russia will
battle Isis in Iraq, Obama’s relative priority, where daily US strikes
occur as well. As the Pentagon insists that the Russian air campaign
will not deter its own, Obama has yet to send a signal that Putin’s
gambit will be cover for winding down a US intervention he never wanted.
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