[D66] Why Russia backs Assad

[J.N.]

  Why Russia backs Assad: a view from Russia’s anti-imperialist left

rs21 <http://rs21.org.uk/author/revsoc21/>onSeptember 18, 2015
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/The editors of the Russian socialist website /*/openleft.ru/*
<http://openleft.ru/?p=6854>/analyse why Russia is now openly moving
troops into Syria to support the Assad regime./

A whole range
<http://syriadirect.org/news/russia%E2%80%99s-visible-presence-in-latakia/>
of evidence
<http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/14/this-satellite-image-leaves-no-doubt-that-russia-is-throwing-troops-and-aircraft-into-syria-latakia-airport-construction/?utm_content=buffereb4a6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=bufferhttp://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/14/this-satellite-image-leaves-no-doubt-that-russia-is-throwing-troops-and-aircraft-into-syria-latakia-airport-construction/?utm_content=buffereb4a6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer> [also here
<http://mashable.com/2015/09/08/russian-selfie-soldiers-in-syria/#QpDtKjDT25kT>]
indicates that Russia is activating its military aid for the Syrian
regime of Bashar al-Assad up to the point of direct involvement of
Russian troops in the Syrian conflict. Why now in particular, and what
lies behind this?

Taken individually, neither military and political ties, nor economic
ties between Russia and the Syrian regime are sufficient to explain the
stubborn support for Assad from the Russian Federation, which had become
the source of a serious conflict with the West even before the events in
Ukraine. Of course, Assad’s regime is now the only reliable ally of
Russia in the region, the loss of which would make it unable to continue
playing an important role in the Middle East.

Supposedly, another factor was the [former] control of Syria over the
transit of Iraqi and Arabian oil – of fundamental importance for Russia
as one of the world’s largest oil exporters. In turn, the desire to
seize this control played a major role in defining the anti-Assad
position of Turkey, Israel and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
However, it is telling that Saudi Arabia received a decisive rejection
when it completely openly suggested
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-is-said-to-use-oil-to-lure-russia-away-from-syrias-assad.html?_r=0>
to Russia that it cut off its support for Assad in return for a lowering
of the tempo of its oil production – which could have then put the break
on tumbling global oil prices.

Concern about the rise of radical Islamism in the region, and beyond to
the North Caucasus, is also not a sufficient explanation. Many analysts
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396338.2013.767403> see
Russia’s support of the Syrian regime as having a significance that goes
well beyond the Syrian conflict itself: by opposing the attempts to
depose Assad, the Kremlin is opposing the very possibility of a “regime
change” sanctioned by international institutions, as it considers that
the next target of such a “regime change” could be itself.

The Russian government’s position on Syria, radically different from
that of western governments, has on occasion brought benefits for its
reputation abroad: such as when Putin’s column was published in the /New
York Times/
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html>,
making a plea against military intervention in Syria, and criticising
notions of American exceptionalism. However, on the whole, Russia has
been more on the defensive.

Meanwhile, the situation in the Middle East changed, and the rise of
ISIS enabled things that had formerly seemed impossible, such as the
partial normalisation of US relations with Iran. So the Assad regime
also stopped being less unacceptable to the US. In this context, Putin
appears to have decided to go on the offensive – perhaps not in the
literal sense of sending troops into Syria, but at the very least in the
sense of backstairs talks with Washington, using the new Russian airbase
in Syria’s Latakia as an excuse.

According to Bloomberg
<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-10/russia-s-syrian-air-base-has-u-s-scrambling-for-a-plan>,
this new tactic may well bear fruit – at least some of those working at
the White House believe the priority should be widening the alliance
against ISIS; they accept the activation of Russian help for Assad as an
already established fact and are even prepared to work with Russia in an
aerial campaign against the Islamic State. By the looks of it, this is
exactly what Putin and [foreign minister] Lavrov are hoping for.

On the whole the Kremlin’s tactical course can be seen as a continuation
of its struggle for a “fairer multipolar world”, in which international
relations are not regulated by normative principles of liberalism and
Human Rights, but through the mutual recognition of interests and
cooperation on concrete questions. It is precisely on these conditions
that, through a pragmatic coalition in Syria, Russia is attempting to
reintegrate itself into the world order, simultaneously changing the
rules of the game.

So the real consequences of Russian foreign policy, despite Russia’s
constant criticisms of the “hypocrisy of humanitarian interventions”,
are no better than the same humanitarian interventions. The victims of
the Syrian regime are far greater
<http://www.businessinsider.com/assads-government-still-kills-way-more-civilians-than-isis-2015-2>
than those of ISIS. Support for Assad is support for a dictator who has
turned the military apparatus of his country into an effective machine
for the obliteration of its own population. However much Lavrov and
[Putin’s press secretary] Peskov make passive-aggressive criticisms of
“western hypocrisy”, Russia is at least as responsible for what is
happening in Syria as western states.

And the Kremlin’s demonstrative refusal to take any part in solving the
refugee crisis is truly hypocritical. By suggesting that the countries
of the EU deal with the consequences of a crisis which it has done so
much to create in Syria, Putin’s Russia feels it has the “last laugh”.
The drama of 100,000s of people losing their homes is presented in
Peskov’s announcements as an elegant lesson, subordinated to the
Kremlin’s foreign policy towards its “western partners”.

/Translated by Nick Evans./

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