My latest piece for the Telegraph this morning has another look at Syria, and notes with gloomy satisfaction that my thoughts on this subject several years ago have been proven correct:
I hate to say that I told you so. But I did.
The question, sighs Moscow to itself, is: who or what might replace Assad? The options vary between supposedly moderate Islamists who may pretend to like the West, and less moderate Islamists who won’t like anybody. Why do anything to make such odious changes more likely? Who knows: Assad may cling on for some time.
And I said it in September 2013:
We have now gone from “Assad must go!” to “Assad has to negotiate with us on a UN resolution for handing over his CW stocks, or there definitely ought to be consequences!” It’s a short sad step from that to “Assad must stay!”
It’s hard to imagine what could bring even more destruction and misery to the hapless Syrians, but Russian bombing of sundry Assad opponents must be high on the list. Maybe this Russian ploy will ‘work’ in its own terms and Assad will be part of some new deal. But the country – it survives at all within its current borders – will never recover from this calamity. As we know from Serbia and other examples, the losses from accumulated stupidity and conflict compound up to staggering levels.
Lots of the usual manic comments:
Putin is taking on the world of Sunnis. this will get very interesting very quickly. The West used a surgeon’s knife and Putin will use a sledge hammer.
This stooge is nothing but a useful idiot and a mouthpiece for Western propaganda. (Who, me? Ed)
The important thing is that Jeremy Corbyn will feel sad about this. He will contribute to the global geo-political debate by sitting in a cafe, feeling compassionate.
Russia will not hold back, muslims will end up being obliterated off the map, this thing will escalate with tactical nukes. Putin is determined to obliterate Islamism, or scare them that much they’ll back off or face entire cities being levelled to dust.
Read this instead. You might actually learn something… The Revolutionary Act Of Telling The Truth By John Pilger: https://www.informationclearing..
Nice to see some common sense in the Daily Telegraph
Vlad has got it absolutely right – whatever his reasons are. And of course he will not face an army of naive hand wringers at home.
“And of course he will not face an army of naive hand wringers at home.” – They’re all in the Gulag.
What an interesting article; and not just because I agree with every word! It is also deeply depressing. At a time when western values and beliefs are under dire threat, our ‘leaders’ are a bunch of jejune schoolchildren. I was born and brought up in the shadow of the Cold War. Never did I imagine that I would be looking to Russia to preserve our way of life.
Hard not to have some sympathy with this one:
Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess, these lands contain people who seem incapable of being helped, whatever we do ends up with us in the dock. We fall over ourselves to import a Saudi citizen from Guantanimo and yet jail a marine for doing his job and killing the enemy, the whole scenario is mad.
My piece concludes:
A good outcome for Russia? Some months of gleeful target practice across Syria for Russian pilots, followed by an international peace process under UN auspices featuring the Assad regime as the only formally legitimate leadership in Syria. That should end up in a dirty deal that ring-fences all Russian strategic interests in Syria for a long time to come, and establishes Moscow as an essential partner for almost any tough international problem.
In short, President Putin moves to occupy political or even moral space left vacant by President Obama’s ineptitude. Putin’s UN speech this week oozed self-confidence with this blunt message to Washington:
It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them … Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing who here?
A big question indeed. Note that Moscow does not care a kopek either about Assad’s personal fate or about Syria. Moscow cares only about Russian power. It now aims to express that power through Assad entering any “managed process” from a position of strength, and utterly dependent on Moscow.
Assad must go? On the contrary, comrade President Obama, Mr Assad will stay, lingering on in power perched on a high mound of smoking rubble and dead Syrians. Sad. But of course inevitable. You want realism? This is what it looks like.
It is genuinely startling that this is where we have ended up. The basic problem? President Obama just can’t or won’t put his head round around Islam and the baffling issues that militant Islamism raises. He has consistently failed to offer any clear leadership or encouragement to reformist forces in the Middle East, preferring instead to emit the bland waffle that characterised his awful but high-profile Cairo speech a few months after taking office:
I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition…
What is the philosophical or even political sense of putting ‘America’ and ‘Islam’ in the same breath as if they are comparable phenomena?
To talk like this defines the issues in ways which really do take us into Clash of Civilisations territory as usually reviled by Western liberals, and plays straight into the hands of Islamist extremists who want to do just that, the more so if (as Obama did) he then pulls key punches.
Some 300 weeks later later this Syrian fiasco is the result.
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I have read the translation in The Washington Post. Thank you for pointing us to it. It is more likely to be accurate than that of the Russian translators because it makes more sense.
Putin comes over as a realist. He understands that there is no such thing as a "moderate rebel". He sees clearly that Assad is essential to stability: there is no alternative in sight. If the rebels – or ISIS – win, Syria will become like Libya. ISIS and the rebels must be destroyed. The most threatening must be destroyed first. The job is not done until all military resistance is broken. Putin's analysis is valid
In contrast to Putin's approach is that of the US, which is, as one would expect, heavily influenced by the CIA. It is unfortunate for the US and its President that the CIA is so influential – if its judgment is wrong and its analysis is faulty, there is no one to tell him. Which is why Obama, entering into office with ides of change, has become in intellectual terms, a prisoner of the CIA. He has no counter to turn to. He will be aware that to ferment insurrection in a foreign state and to arm and support that insurrection is an act of war. The CIA has been involved in that sort of activity since it was formed over half a century ago. Most of the time, its activities were directed against the Soviet Union – and its corporate mind sees the Russian Federation as a continuance of the USSR, particularly when its President is a former KGB officer. It aims, therefore, to undermine and subvert the historical Russian policy – which the USA mirrors – of surrounding herself by compliant states, of which Syria is an important one. It does not appreciate that Russia has changed: it is no longer motivated by International Socialism. The CIA, in contrast has not changed and continues to think it has the right – even the duty – to interfere at will in the politics of other sovereign States, even to precipitate regime change. Because it can, it thinks the US should carry out air strikes in a foreign country without invitation or permission. These are acts of war and contrary to the UN Charter.
Russia has not made that error – or committed that crime. Mr Puthin has explained why. I would like to see Mr Obama's defence..
Always an interesting question as to which version is the more 'valid' or 'accurate'. the authorised official translation or the unofficial one. The fact that one makes more sense than the other does not make that version the more valid(!). When in doubt, look at the original version in the speaker's own language and compare that to all the translated versions. Not so easy!
I suspect that the KGB/SVR/GRU and the CIA both have their limitations…