Cole writes: "Obama wants al-Assad to stand down
as a prerequisite for effective US action against Daesh in Syria (a few air
sorties and even fewer air strikes are ineffectual). Putin thinks al-Assad is
key to defeating Daesh and that everyone should ally with Damascus."
US president Barack Obama and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin. (photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Why Obama and Putin Are Both Wrong on Syria
By
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
29 September 15P
President Obama seemed awfully defensive in his speech
at the United Nations on Monday. The reason is not far to seek. Russia’s
Vladimir Putin has surprised Washington by volunteering to get militarily
involved in Syria and by arguing that only by enlisting the Baath regime of
Bashar al-Assad can Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) be defeated.
Obama is defensive because a) his own plans for
confronting Daesh have largely failed, and b) because Putin’s plans for doing
so are concrete and involve trying to prop up dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Putin is arguing for a unified push against Daesh by a
wide range of countries, and for allying in this effort with the government of
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. He says only such a unified response has a
hope of prevailing. He points to Libya as an example of the chaos that occurs
in the wake of Washington’s insistence on going around overthrowing
governments.
So ironically the Russian Federation and its
ex-Communist president is taking a conservative position here, of trying to
prop up the status quo, which the US views itself as a radical democratizer a
ala Thomas Paine.
Obama, I think, tried to
get the Libya comparison out of the way by apologizing for the way NATO
abandoned that country after the successful intervention of 2011. He said,
In such efforts the United States will always do our
part. We will do so, mindful of the lessons of the past. Not just the lessons
of Iraq but also the example of Libya, where he joined an international
coalition under a U.N. mandate to prevent a slaughter. Even as we helped the
Libyan people bring an end to the reign of a tyrant, our coalition could have
and should have done more to fill a vacuum left behind. We are grateful to the
United Nations for its efforts to forge a unity government. We will help any
legitimate Libyan government as it works to bring the country together. But we
also have to recognize that we must work more effectively in the future as an
international community to build capacity for states that are in distress
before they collapse.
Obama is trying to say that the original sin was not
intervention or the overthrow of a dictator but the absolute neglect of Libya
in the aftermath.
By analogy, he is saying that a joint effort to remove
Bashar al-Assad could work out fine if all the participating countries join
together in rebuilding the Syrian army and state in the aftermath.
Obama is a smart man but this plan is completely
unworkable. Daesh in Syria would likely take advantage of the fall of the Baath
to Western forces, who, staying in the skies above Syria, could no more take
them on efficiently then than they can do now.
Obama offered to work with Russia against Daesh, which
has allied with the Baath regime of Al-Assad, but said, that “there cannot be,
after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo.”
This statement is true in both international law and in everyday practice.
Al-Assad is too tainted by mass murder to continue as president. And, the third
or so of his population who have seceded from his rule are heavily armed and
don’t want him coming back.
Obama indicted al-Assad:
Let’s remember how this started. Assad reacted to
peaceful protests by escalating repression and killing that in turn created the
environment for the current strife. And so Assad and his allies can’t simply
pacify the broad majority of a population who have been brutalized by chemical
weapons and indiscriminate bombing.
Confirming what many of us have long suspected, that
Obama is a fan of the Realists in political Science, he added, “Yes, realism
dictates that compromise will be required to end the fighting and stomp out
ISIL. But realism also requires a managed transition away from Assad into a new
leader and an inclusive government that recognizes there must be an end to the
chaos so that the Syrian people can begin to rebuild.”
Obama blamed al-Assad for the rise of Daesh, omitting
mention of American responsibility via the destruction of Iraq.
How hopeless the situation is in Syria is clear from
the speech of Vladimir Putin
Putin complained that the
problems in Syria come from US and its allies back so-called moderate rebels,
who the moment they can run off to join Daesh: “And now, the ranks of radicals
are being joined by the members of the so-called moderate Syrian opposition supported
by the Western countries. First, they are armed and trained and then they
defect to the so-called Islamic State.”
Putin then went in for some conspiracy thinking,
blaming the US and the West for creating Daesh (they did not) to overthrow
secular regimes (which they don’t want to do). “Besides, the Islamic State
itself did not just come from nowhere. It was also initially forged as a tool
against undesirable secular regimes.”
Putin’s own fears about the possible spread of Daesh
to Russian provinces such as Chechniya is palpable: “Having established a
foothold in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has begun actively expanding to
other regions. It is seeking dominance in the Islamic world. And not only
there, and its plans go further than that. The situation is more than
dangerous.”
Putin is alarmed in a way that Obama really never has
been by Daesh. For the US security establishment, Daesh is bad but not near or
all that big or all that urgent. The US approach to Daesh has seldom gone
beyond aerial containment. Putin begs to differ.
The Russian president denounced the hypocrisy of
denouncing terrorism but de facto supporting Salafi fighters in Syria.
Putin then got to his point:
“We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to
cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are valiantly
fighting terrorism face to face. We should finally acknowledge that no one but
President Assad’s armed forces and Kurds (ph) militias are truly fighting the
Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria.”
But actually during the past two years long periods of
time have passed in which the al-Assad regime seldom militarily engaged Daesh,
leaving it to prey opportunistically on the other rebel groups. You couldn’t
call that valiant.
So Obama wants al-Assad to stand down as a
prerequisite for effective US action against Daesh in Syria (a few air sorties
and even fewer air strikes are ineffectual). Putin thinks al-Assad is key to
defeating Daesh and that everyone should ally with Damascus.
Putin is blind to the ways that al-Assad and his
military brutality is prolonging the civil war. Backing his genocidal policies
will just perpetuate that war. The Guardian says he showed
more flexibility after his speech: “However, Putin showed more flexibility than
he had in his general assembly speech, acknowledging that political reform in
Damascus could be part of a solution, but indicated that Assad would be a
willing participant in that change.”
Some sort of synthesis of the Putin and Obama plans is
likely to emerge. Obama’s romance with drones and aerial bombardment blinds him
to the poor progress the US has made against Daesh using those tools. His
search for “moderate” forces to back seems also in Syria to be a pipe dream. If
Putin ties himself too closely to the sinking ship of Bashar, he will go down
with it.
As Obama said, though, Syria policy-making is the most
complex problem the US has faced in over a decade.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
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