Ken Berwitz
One can hear thedisbelief in capitals from Washington to London to Berlin to Ankara and beyond.How can Vladimir Putin, with a sinking economy and a second-rate military,continually dictate the course of geopolitical events? Whether it’s in Ukraineor Syria, the Russian president seems always to have the upper hand.
The fact is that Putinis playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what hewants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition ofstability. He is defending Russia\’s interests by keeping Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgentgroup that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow. Wesaw this behavior in Ukraine, and now we\’re seeing it even more aggressively – with bombing runs and cruise missile strikes – in Syria.
President Obama and Secretary of State JohnF. Kerry say that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. That istrue, but Moscow understands that diplomacy follows the facts on the ground,not the other way around. Russia and Iran are creating favorable facts. Oncethis military intervention has run its course, expect a peace proposal fromMoscow that reflects its interests, including securing the Russian militarybase at Tartus.
Let us also realizethat hectoring Putin about the bad choice he has made sounds weak.
So what can we do?
First, we must rejectthe argument that Putin is simply reacting to world disorder. Putin, thisargument would suggest, is just trying to hold together the Middle East statesystem in response to the chaos engendered by U.S. overreach in Iraq, Libya andbeyond.
Putin is indeedreacting to circumstances in the Middle East. He sees a vacuum created by ourhesitancy to fully engage in places such as Libya and to stay the course inIraq. But Putin as the defender of international stability? Don\’t go there.
Second, we have tocreate our own facts on the ground. No-fly zones and safe harbors forpopulations are not “half-baked” ideas. They worked before(protecting the Kurds for 12 years under Saddam Hussein\’s reign of terror) andwarrant serious consideration.
Third, we must “de-conflict” our military activities with those of the Russians. This isdistasteful, and we should never have gotten to a place where the Russians arewarning us to stay out of their way. But we must do all that we can to preventan incident between us. Presumably, even Putin shares this concern.
Finally, we need tosee Putin for who he is. Stop saying that we want to better understand Russianmotives. The Russians know their objective very well: Secure their interests inthe Middle East by any means necessary. What\’s not clear about that?
