Paul McGeough
Washington: It's no surprise that Chechens have turned up to fight in Syria – for
the so-called Islamic State, for other rebel forces fighting the regime of
Bashar al-Assad and even for the regime itself.
#Chechnya, their predominantly Muslim homeland in the North Caucasus, has
been in conflict with Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991,
fighting two brutal wars which ultimately put their mountain republic in the
hands of a pro-Moscow Chechen warlord. Chechens know jihad.
And it's hardly surprising that Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned up in #Syria, putting his air force and other armed services at the disposal of the once-beleaguered Assad, son of the late Hafez al-Assad who, through serial coups, became absolute ruler of Syria in 1971; and who, during and after the Cold War, gave Moscow a foothold in the Middle East. Putin knows a vacuum when he sees one.
The Russian intervention in Syria has been a game-changer. Assad's regime is now on the offensive in what had been a stalemated conflict. Backed on the ground by Iranian, Lebanese and Iraqi fighters, he is regaining territory and threatening the rebels' hold on much of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city.
The question then becomes: what are the possible elements of a Russian
endgame in Syria?
The answer might best be found in the ruins of Chechnya or in Ukraine, where Putin brazenly annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and continues to foment instability in Kiev and across Europe by orchestrating a headstrong separatist movement - to which Washington and the European Union have responded with economic sanctions, which some observers reckon are becoming old hat given the more immediate crises of the Middle East and the urgent need to accommodate as much as corral the Russians.
"Putin's trying to change the topic from Ukraine, and maybe he's been
successful on that," Carnegie Europe scholar Thomas de Waal told The Boston Globe.
Joining the dots between Syria and Chechnya, De Waal spoke of a Russian
style of conflict that dovetailed with Assad's merciless shelling of opposition
strongholds.
"Overwhelming force [is] your basic strategy," he said. "You treat every enemy city as Berlin, and you pulverise it. There is no subtlety, no regard for collateral damage or civilians."
In Ukraine, Moscow's below-the-radar military and economic intervention was
conducted in parallel with a seeming indifference to decisions made via
diplomatic channels, in which it too participated.
Less than a military victory, Putin was more intent on continued
instability and the role it gave him in the diplomatic process of managing that
instability – even at the cost of having sanctions imposed on him.
Just as Putin foreshadowed George W. Bush's "you're with us or against us" rhetoric in justifying ruthless attacks that reduced the Chechen capital Grozny to rubble, the Russian leader's strategy in Syria seems bent on a similarly destructive us-and-them outcome.
As collated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the victims of Russian air strikes include 965 IS
fighters killed, compared with 1233 non-IS rebels and as many as 1380
civilians.
Putin's targeting of non-Islamic State forces, while echoing the Assad line
that all non-regime fighters are terrorists, points to an outcome in which the
last armies standing are those of the regime and IS, leaving the US and its allies
two options: back the Assad regime or withdraw.
A civil war rebadged as a counter-terrorism operation is much easier to fight because human and civil rights get sidelined; bombing becomes indiscriminate; and there is no distinction between civilians and insurgents. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev describes "pacified" Chechnya as "one of the business cards of Russia – a good, unique example in history of [the] combat of terrorism".
As Russia engaged in Syria late in 2015, Moscow analyst Maxim Trudolyubov wrote in The New York Times: "[The Chechen] war defined Mr Putin as a
leader. His goal, then in Chechnya [and] now in Syria, is to tame a restive
region by giving a free hand to a loyal warlord, no matter how brutal, who will
crush all jihadists, separatists and rivals in order to maintain
stability."
And as in Ukraine, diplomacy buys time – while arguing that its bombing
missions in Syria would continue until March 1, the Russians were party to a
negotiation last week that called for a "cessation of hostilities"
within a week – but days later Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a
conference that its chances of success were only 49 in 100.
In the process, however, Moscow has talked its way back to the centre of events in the Middle East – and a humbled Washington looks on as Russia's battlefield decisions narrow American options.
Moscow justifies its interventions as responses to decisions in the West –
its campaign in Ukraine was part of its response to the eastward expansion of
NATO, and it supports Assad because of Western demands for regime change, which
took place with such disastrous results in Iraq and Libya.
And in Putin's intervention there are the threads of a compromise solution
to the Syrian crisis that were it to come to pass, would cause Washington and
some European capitals to gulp, but which would appeal mightily to Middle
Eastern leaders who don't let democratic niceties get in the way of their hold
on power.
By making it clear that it is more interested in preserving the Syrian regime than it is in preserving Assad the man, Moscow has opened the possibility that the region's leaders will welcome Russia as a superpower player who will protect their tinpot regimes.
And in investing so much in his Syrian adventure, Putin will expect to
dislodge Iran as the principal foreign patron of Damascus – an outcome that
would have the Sunni princes of the Gulf gleefully somersaulting. Even a few
Western leaders might jump at the prospect of seeing Tehran brought down a peg
or two.
In the Putin book, as in the Assad book, a leader does not settle with
"terrorists" – he eliminates them. And if whole communities are
deemed to be "terrorist", their destruction becomes a logical
objective and ultra-violence a legitimate tool.
The different approaches of Washington and Moscow prompted this assessment
by a Syrian official escorting foreign journalists in Latakia, on the
Mediterranean coast: "They're not like the Americans – when they get
involved, they do it all the way."
Indeed. With a pliant news media and the swagger of the dictator he almost
is, Putin will have a freer hand than any government whose citizens get to vote
in meaningful elections and who tire of war.
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