I am at a loss to understand Russian policy towards Syria. Whereas
earlier it was rational, if hardly admirable, now it has become totally counterintuitive.
Russia has achieved the rare feat
of seeming to be both anti-Israel and anti-Sunni Islam, by keeping afloat an
inveterate enemy of Israel who has oppressed his own majority Sunni population for
years. To do this to simply spite the Untied States is the action of a far
smaller power than one assumes even a diminished post-Soviet Russia is. To act
as the champion of Middle Eastern Christians, honorarily and absurdly extending
that designation to the Alawites just because they are not Sunni? Shades of the
Crimean War and ‘protecting the holy places’, and Russia was far more feared
geopolitically then? Besides, the Assad regime stands as the moral opposite for
all the Orthodox Church stands for. I have just been rereading The Brothers Karamazov and Father
Zossima would certainly not approve. The entire idea, popularized by Samuel
Huntington in the 1990s, that a post-Soviet Russia could find its geopolitical
role as spearheading an orthodox population is preposterous. Bulgaria, Romania,
Ethiopia all remember the Moscow-fostered oppressive regimes that brutalized
them in the Cold War period. Despite what people said during the Kosovo war,
the Serbia-Russia relationship has always been very distant (cf. book eight of Anna Karenina). I think the current
Russian regime has somewhat offended Georgia, no? Armenia, in case you were
wondering is not Orthodox in the strict sense (non-Chalcedonian) and of course most
of the Christians actually in Syria as well. That is all a crock. There are all
sorts of policy options for Russia in the Middle East, including a friendlier
relationship with Israel (and Putin’s relatively friendly visit there recently
was an interesting token, and of course the only Russian-speaking population in the Middle East today, side i guess from all the Russian advisers in Syria, is in Israel) but this bizarre association with Assad until death
do them part is ruining these possibilities. So Russia is supporting an
un-Christian regime loathed by Muslims and Jews. Not a winning policy. Turkey was originally against a regime change in Syria because it saw this possibility as helping the US too much, but, as in Libya, they realized their credibility with the broader arab world depended on a change in policy. Why has Russia not followed suit? In
general, Russia and, perhaps even more surprisingly, China, are far too
supportive of a host of regimes that will simply not be there in the medium-term
future, that while we are all still active and vigorous will topple—Syria,
Iran, North Korea. It is a losing strategy for them, and as unpopular as the US
is in the Islamic world it has to be said that the US, inter alia, has had elements in its foreign policy favorable to
Islamic peoples Russia and China simply have not—any popularity they have in
this world is totally due to expediency and not due to any sense of shared
values. Which is why Russia has very little room for maneuver….
