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The Daily Signal
The
Consequences of Russia’s Bombing Campaign in Syria
Josh Siegel
October 01, 2015
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has worked to
isolate Russia from the Middle East.
Now, in 2015 and five years into a devastating civil war in Syria,
Russia has not only entered the most intractable situation in the
Middle East, but also attacked the situation with indiscriminate
authority.
Under the guise of fighting terrorism to protect itself and save the
ruthless government of Bashar Assad, Russian warplanes on Thursday
conducted a second day of air strikes in Syria, allegedly targeting not
the Islamic State, but rival rebel groups.
By targeting rival insurgent groups to the Islamic State, the terrorist
group also known as ISIS, foreign policy experts say Russia is
complicating a Syrian conflict that has resulted in hundreds of
thousands of deaths and a surge of refugees.
Experts who spoke with The Daily Signal say Russia’s emergence into the
Syrian conflict, foreshadowed by its military buildup at an air base in
Latakia, Syria, over the last three weeks, makes a diplomatic solution
to the war more difficult and could result in accidents between
American and Russian warplanes flying in the same area.
These experts say that by taking a hands-off approach to the Syrian
conflict since day one, the Obama administration—seemingly blindsided
by the Russian moves—has left itself with few options to deter the
behavior, and now, to stop it.
“Four or five years ago, there would have been a lot more options than
right now,” said David Schenker, the director of the Program on Arab
Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“This is a problem that hasn’t aged well, and our options are narrow in
the absence of U.S. leadership that has left a vacuum. Now, we have a
de facto division of labor, where the U.S. attacks ISIS in the East and
the Russians whack the remainder of the opposition—secular, liberal,
and otherwise—and the ones most threatening to the Assad regime.”
In choosing to take out the rival rebel groups—including at least one
U.S.-backed group trained by the Central Intelligence Agency—experts
say the Russian campaign will do more harm than good, having little
impact in defeating ISIS and propping up Assad, whose government forces
had been suffering losses recently.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is portraying this as joining the
international fight against ISIS,” said Steve Bucci, a foreign and
national security policy expert at The Heritage Foundation. “Don’t get
me wrong; he doesn’t like ISIS. There is a counter-terrorism connection
that is legit. But it is mostly a fig leaf. It’s probably fourth down
on their list of reasons to do this.”
Bucci said the Russians are purposely targeting groups other than ISIS
because these are the ones most successful in fighting Assad.
“If you eliminate all of the others, the choice is Assad or ISIS,”
Bucci said. “So there are no other options, and that makes their
argument to leave Assad in place more marketable to the rest of the
world.”
‘Could Have Stopped’ It
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Secretary of State John
Kerry criticized Russia for failing to communicate the details of their
mission.
Putin and Obama met at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this
week to talk about the fight against ISIS and the Syrian conflict.
“By supporting Assad and seemingly taking on everybody fighting Assad,”
Carter said, Russia is “taking on the whole rest of the country that’s
fighting Assad.”
“That’s why the Russian position is doomed to fail,” Carter added.
Kerry, meanwhile, said the U.S. would explore “options” to solve the
conflict.
Even so, some believe that the Obama administration could have done
more to prevent the Russian advance in the first place.
“We could have stopped this deployment is Syria,” said Jorge Benitez, a
senior fellow in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security
at the Atlantic Council.
“We do have a partnership with the government of Iraq, whose airspace
Russia used to move weapons and aircraft. We could have played a
stronger negotiating role to try and prevent that, but so far this
administration has not been successful in persuading Baghdad to stop
it.”
In fact, this past weekend, Iraq joined Russia, Iran, and Syria in a
new agreement to strengthen cooperation against ISIS, in another move
orchestrated by Putin to rival the U.S. for influence in the region.
Limited Options
With Russia gaining influence in the region, experts say the Americans
have limited choices to muzzle them.
For one, the Russians aren’t likely going anywhere.
“You can’t tell them not to do stuff,” Bucci said. “They are a
sovereign nation. If they want to support someone who say they say is
an ally, even though the rest of world is saying their ally is a rotten
guy who needs to go, they have the power to do that.”
Experts say the U.S. should at least aim to forge an agreement with
Russia to ensure that Russian planes are not conflicting with the
international coalition’s mission, which the Americans lead.
The U.S. can also choose to apply further sanctions on Russia, in
addition to the ones already punishing the Kremlin for their
intervention in Ukraine.
Benitez says the U.S. could blockade the Port of Tartus in Latakia,
Russia’s only naval base in the region, to prevent the Kremlin from
being able to ferry in equipment and weapons.
The Obama administration could even enhance its support for the
moderate Syrian rebels, so they can make gains against the Assad
regime—or do something even more drastic.
“Perhaps we could boost these rebels up to where they can inflict
losses on the Russians,” Schenker said. “It’s not something any
administration would do without credible escalation of things, but of
course we have to remember Russia’s reportedly killing people the U.S.
is supporting and training in Syria.”
Tragic Consequences
If nothing changes, or if Russia escalates its behavior more, the
consequences could be tragic.
Because most of the Syrians fleeing the country are escaping the bombs
of the Assad regime, not ISIS, the refugee crisis that has paralyzed
Europe figures to worsen.
“Russia’s actions won’t solve the problem, but exacerbate it,” Schenker
said. “If you want to depopulate a country of Sunni Muslims, then what
the Russians are doing is great,” he said sarcastically.
In addition, because the Russians don’t not have advanced weapons like
the U.S. would use—“bombs that have almost no guidance,” Benitez says—
it’s likely they could miss their intended target and harm civilians.
Despite the complexity of the Syrian problem, the experts say, some of
the culpability will fall on the Americans.
“Frankly, the administration has not taken any action to demonstrate it
wanted to play role in the Syria crisis since 2011,” Schenker said. “We
have essentially been an observer. The U.S. has zero credibility on
anything having to do with Syria, so I wouldn’t expect the Russians to
anticipate the U.S. will change its policy of disengagement.”
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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