Russia no longer plays the most important role in managing Syria’s internal affairs. While Russia still has the upper hand internationally, it is slowly losing its foot and its place in the internal Syrian Rubik Cube.
During the past few days, official information was received from Moscow about a meeting, taking place in Doha, in which the Special Representative of the Russian President for Eastern Affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, and the former head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition ,Moaz Al-Khatib, gathered in order to discuss political processes only within the framework of the international resolution 2254, disregarding any other references such as Astana.
Content has been leaked from the meeting that brought the delegation of Alawite personalities together with the secretary of the permanent Russian mission to the United Nations in Geneva in mid-June. The contents of this meeting came out in two versions; the first is Russian and the second is the one pertaining to the Alawite delegation that corrected the minutes of the meeting. Russian confusion is therefore understandable especially concerning the opposition of Alawites. The Russians disclosed that they understand that the institutions they are interested in keeping and supporting are of “low popular acceptance due to their corruption."
In the internal areas controlled by the regime or by local powers _with the help of Russia_, meetings with Christians and Kurdish groups took place. General Alex Slimen was sent to oversee the countryside region militarily, while the name of the general who was sent to As-Suwayda remains undisclosed.
The Russians are trying to take hold of the land in a race against time without revealing their real motives. Their motives can be read as a competition with the Iranians on the one hand, and trying to win the street in favor of an interest that is required to be fulfilled with maximum speed on the other.
Russians are still unable to move with confidence within the confines of the southern region which is fraught with military incidents and frictions between the Fifth Legion and the regime's intelligence checkpoints, and in which the Iranian influence moving towards Albukamal is growing stronger.
Russians are, therefore, uncertain about the effectiveness of taking one big step toward change, instead, they follow the method of mini movements and degradation. This political strategy drags them into many complications in a country where the interests of regional powers intersect along with nationalist aspirations, fears and sectarian mistrust and divisions. This complicated formula, created by nine years of war, cannot be programmed with the will of one party, and at the same time it needs two types of effort, the first is the exclusion of actors like Iran and its militia and the fourth division, and the second is building an Arab-Western alliance that is acceptable to all parties, and pushes towards a political settlement And, both of these demands are not realistic and doable according to Russian political thinking. However, according to the existing Moscow policies, the solution is to go towards partition, which will turn Russia into a party among a group of parties in the ‘Statiko’ that would eventually lead to a confrontation between all parties, or the exit of all.
In the near future, if Russia were still unable to find a solution to the problem of Bashar al-Assad, it is possible that all the military forces allied with it would be a target, the accumulated public dissatisfaction would be used, and there would be a possible returning of the ‘Libero’, ie the "Islamic State" (ISIS). Forming such terrorist groups is not difficult, since this did already happen previously in Iraq when the Americans formed the so-called ‘Awakening’ to become a target for ‘Al Qaeda’. Iran is ready and well equipped for such a role in view of its long experience in sponsoring extremist groups through its intelligence services.
All analyses of the declared Russian political discourse may be mistaken. They feel uncomfortable with the intractability of the situation, and it bothers them that Iran has, now, an important influence in the fields in which they started building economic interests and military bases. Attempts to hold the Western position externally, and corruption internally, responsible for the disruption of the paths of change and the restoration of the state, can be interpreted as a procrastination on their part and an inability to prove their worth. In reality, the Russians want a solution but they are in lack of one. For that, they show exceptional flexibility to meet local groups and individuals, and unite them in a group in order to construct a resilient combination acceptable to the United States and Europe. Yet, it is obvious to Russian that Iran is not likely to accept it. The next step, therefore, should be to confront Iran with local powers, including groups from Assad’s pods.
Zaman Al Wasl- Ali Eid
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