Catastroika: What's Syria in Russian?

In realpolitik minds, Vladimir Putin casts the shadow of a shrewd player on the world stage. He opposes ‘humanitarian interventions’, while he aggressively defends Russia’s national sovereignty. Even still, it’s true Putin understands power as well as he wields it. Putin’s primary interest is in the consolidation of the state and the maintenance of its power.

As recent events in Ukraine, and less recently in Georgia, demonstrate, Putin wants to secure the body national above all else. So why is there a Russian military presence in Syria?

For decades, the Assad regime maintained itself as a wedge between the Sunni elite and the Alawite military leadership. When the uprising began it had a popular, secular and democratic character (though these elements still exist) which was comprised by a diverse base. It was during the crackdown that it spiraled into a cycle of violence, into which hordes of Sunni Islamists flooded. As the uprising descended into a bloodbath, Putin may have began counting the miles between Syria and Chechnya.

The fact that the Chechen cause of independence from Russian hegemony has drawn Islamists from the Arab world must be unsettling. The prospect of Islamic State emerging from the chaos in Syria has sent shockwaves throughout the region. It could well embolden Islamic militants in the Caucasus, as it has elsewhere. After all, jihadi groups in Libya have declared allegiance to Islamic State, just as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have done. The Assad regime may pose a bulwark, in Putin’s view, to the tide of Islamism.

So the Syrian regime does fit into Putin’s domestic agenda. However, it’s also the case that Syria fits into Russia’s regional interests. It’s a major nexus of fuel pipelines, and it has strategic value. Syria sits on NATO’s doorstep, alongside Iraq and Iran. It has a coastline with the Mediterranean, home to the US Sixth Fleet. Russia has long looked for counterweights to US proxies in the region. Consequently, Russia has been a major supplier of arms to the Syrian regime long before the civil war broke out.

Recently, it has come out that the Russian government offered a deal, in which Assad would step down. In February 2012, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari held talks with the envoys of the UN Security Council. The Russian representative, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Bashar al-Assad to cede power. This would be after peace talks between the regime and the opposition had started. The US, UK and France were convinced Assad was about to fall, so they rejected the Russian offer.

Ironically, the US continues to demand that Assad step down, and this prevents any serious negotiations. This demand helps to keep Assad in power. Otherwise it might be possible for the regime and the opposition to engage in peace talks. As Patrick Cockburn writes, serious negotiations could lead to power-sharing arrangements. It’s plausible that the Syrian regime would be willing to dump Assad to hold on. Yet, even when it was within reach the US did not jump at the opportunity. The Russian plan to drop Assad is not without precedent.

In February 2003, Putin dispatched his envoy Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad to deliver a stern message to Saddam Hussein. By this point, Vladimir Putin had joined Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in opposing the US invasion of Iraq. Putin told Saddam that if he would step down from his post as President, voluntarily, to allow democratic elections to take place, then he could stay in the country. It was a last ditch attempt to stop the war. Perhaps fearing a coup d’etat by his generals, Saddam Hussein quietly rejected the idea.

Alas, the failure to prevent the Iraq war has now engulfed Syria in flames. The rhizome of Islamic militancy embedded itself deep into Iraqi society before reaching into Syria in the midst of civil war. The rise of Islamic State partly comes out of Saudi-Qatari ambitions to promote fundamentalism and combat secular nationalism and republicanism. It also comes out of the Iraq war, the experience of US occupation and the sectarian rule of the Maliki government. The new fundamentalist hive took shape because all political alternatives have been snuffed out.

The region is home to over four million soldiers divided between the different states. Yet Islamic State has been left to take shape and seize huge swathes of territory. The problem is clear: you can’t defeat Islamic State without working with Assad, and you can’t defeat Assad without empowering Islamic State. How can you pretend you stand for liberal values and take sides in this fight? The West has a problem. The liberal apologists for ‘humanitarian intervention’ have an even bigger problem. But it’s not the only one.

It looks like there is no coherent strategy. The US faces a myriad set of competing interests, among its proxies, and its foes. Turkey wants Assad to fall, and it’s been willing to lend support to Islamic State. Especially as this threatens the aspirations of Kurdish nationalists. To Erdogan, ISIS are the anti-PKK. Meanwhile Iran and Hezbollah share a common interest in defending the Assad regime. In a bid to destroy the Ba’athist regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funneled arms and treasure to the Salafi jihadists. So Israel is happy to watch the corpses pile up, but it fears Islamic State reaching its borders.

It’s would be much more viable for Russia to back the Syrian regime. The Russian government has longstanding connections to Iran, which in turn needs Syria to help arm and fund Hezbollah. Without this alliance, Israel might still be occupying southern Lebanon. The Iranian government also wants to keep Iraq as a sovereign and democratic country because it can easily be dominated by the Shi’a under those conditions. So it’s obvious who has the potential to forge a coherent strategy. But it would likely leave the Syrian regime (possibly not Assad) in power.

However, the reasons why the Syrian people rose up against Bashar al-Assad have not been resolved. Human rights are still a far away dream, let alone democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered and millions have been displaced. It’s clear that the Putin government does not have the best interests of Syrians at heart. Peace and stability in West Asia really just chimes well with the status quo. If the global order is redefined and reconstituted, Putin could easily lose out.

This article was first published at Souciant.

SPECTRE - New Website!

So after six years of keeping this blog I've decided the time is right to move forward. I won't be taking down this blog, but I will be moving to a new website. The new project is a collaborative effort of myself and my friends Chris Horner and Mark Waller (hopefully others too). It's called Spectre as an ode to the Communist Manifesto, and not to the villainous James Bond organisation.

Spectre aims to channel radical perspectives and conversations on politics, philosophy, history and culture. The objective being to challenge the conventional wisdom of neoliberalism and build an online presence for ideas not heard in the mainstream. In its commentary on today’s political system Spectre hopes to recognise and record the possibilities of a better world.

So from now on, you can read my work here: http://spectre-online.org/

The 2015 General Election.

I covered the election cycle for Souciant. My first article focused on Ed Miliband and what he represents for the centre-left and for the Labour Party.

The early signs of the Miliband leadership were not promising. He shirked from making promises early on, apparently to avoid commitments he couldn’t fulfil, probably to avert any infighting. Labour veterans will remember, with no nostalgia, the splits in the 1980s, which ruptured the party’s electoral chances, consigning it to the wilderness for the best part of two decades. So long as the party remains united, it can back neoliberal policies. 

In this regard, sectarianism has its virtues over unity. As Leo Panitch has emphasised, it might be necessary to divide ranks, and prompt a full-blown confrontation, in order to rescue the official social democratic party from its own rightward drift. Contestation can lead to progressive outcomes, but plenty of people prefer to play the safe game holding onto a scintilla of hope. The last battle for the life and soul of the Labour Party was fought in the 1980s. 

The post-war Labour Party has consistently sought to buttress the system and avoid the redistribution of wealth and power. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the plan was to secure ever-rising living standards through adjustments to income and jobs policy, as well as an inflationary monetary approach, to make the pie appear bigger for everyone. Then in the 1990s New Labour promised it could do this by further compromise and, ultimately, by heaping greater debt onto people. 

Likewise, Miliband promises to tweak the system just enough to placate the incorrigible masses. He tries to make the right noises about taxes, health care, jobs and housing, but ultimately falls short. We’re told he’s the official left candidate, and yet he talks about ‘responsible’ capitalism. The days of Bevan and Attlee are long gone. These may be the end times for the centre-left.

I wrote these words for an article, the Death of the Centre-Left, published on March 31. For the election I looked at almost every major party, with the exceptions of Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems, with particular attention paid to the Green Party, Labour, UKIP and the Conservatives. Here's my take on the 2015 election:
The Anti-Cameron - On the significance of the SNP as an alternative to the Whitehall consensus and what it means for those of us on the left-of-centre.
The New Ted Heath - A historical look at Cameron's Conservative Party and how it reached this peculiarly modern manifestation of right-wing politics.
These Greens Are Different - A critical, yet sympathetic, look at the Green Party, their social programme and what has gone wrong for them on the campaign trail.
White Identity Politics - A comparison of UKIP and the DUP in historical terms of colonial and racial oppression, specifically how the oppression of the Irish helped to constitute the white identity to which UKIP now appeals.
Small was Beautiful - A look at the strangely reactionary history of the Green Party, how they came to be and why they are left-wing today.
Dead Labour - Again, a critical look at Labour and precisely the history of its infighting and how it produced the current political impasse.
Early 90s Flashback - Looking back to the 'surprise' victory of 1992 in terms of the Conservative majority won and secured by David Cameron. What lessons can we draw from this?