RUSSIAN ARMS TO SYRIA: THANK YOU, COMRADE?

5/29/13

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, commenting on the EU decision effectively clearing the way to ship arms to the Syrian rebels (but probably not before August 31), stated

“We would only send arms to anybody in carefully controlled circumstances…with other countries and in accordance with international law.”

The French, meanwhile, are considering Gen. Salim Idris, leader of the Supreme Military Council, the latest Middle Eastern potentate disguising himself as a “moderate” in order to get on the receiving end of the Western aid sluice (perhaps Mr. Idris is  a distant cousin of Hamid Karzai, but I digress.), as a possible channel for western arms shipments.

The Western urge to help the citizenry of Syria is understandable; no one wants to stand by while the citizenry is being slaughtered by its own government.   The Western search for a “moderates” to arm to fight the Assad regime is also understandable; no one wants to arm Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda wannabes and have doing so come back to bite the benefactor; think the United States, which virtually created Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.  

While these impulses are understandable, they are as silly as U.S. guarantees to Russia of their naval base in Tartus in a post-Assad Syria.  See my 5/17/13 post, AMERICAN ASSURANCES IN SYRIA:  A RUSSIAN GUANTANAMO IN AL QAEDA’S COURT?   The West cannot control events in Syria and there are no “moderates,” whatever that means in this context, to arm.  We have three choices in Syria:   support the thuggish, or worse, Assad regime, support the radicals who compose virtually all of the Syrian resistance, or stay the hell out of the whole conflict.   The third is the only logical course of action.  See, inter alia, THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR:  A FRIGHTENING HISTORICAL ANALOGY, 5/24/13 and WHAT IF BASHAR ASSAD WINS IN SYRIA?, 5/21/13.

Ironically, but not for the first time in history, the Russians may be doing us a favor by intervening actively in Syria.  They may not be doing the right thing for themselves;  they, too, should probably stay out, though their interests in Syria are more vital than outs.  Again, see my 5/17/13 post.   In the wake of the EU talk of arming the rebels, the Russians have reaffirmed their determination to send, among other things, the S-300 air defense system to Syria, which is sufficiently sophisticated to quash any Western ideas of air raids or no-fly zones in Syria.   As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov put it,

“Such steps in many ways restrain some hotheads.” 

And we know who Mr. Ryabkov has in mind when he speaks of  “hotheads.”

Going further, the Russians may be doing us a larger favor by keeping the Assad dynasty in power.   Beyond Syria’s being the Russians’ only friend in the Arab world and containing the only Russian base outside the former Soviet Union, the Russians have a third great interest in Syria, i.e., containing the spread of radical Islamism that is causing the Russians fits in its southern Republics of Chechnya and Dagestan and which we got a taste of in Boston earlier this Spring.   If Assad is overthrown, it isn’t going to be done by the “moderates” we in the West fantasize about.  Syria will become either a radical Islamic republic or, more likely, a lawless no-man’s land, like Afghanistan, a veritable agar dish for radical groups.  

Given Syria’s physical proximity to the southern reaches of Russia, the Russians are understandably very concerned about Syria’s becoming a breeding ground for terrorist troublemakers.   And even though we have the luxury of distance, we should be equally concerned.  Again, the Russians may very well be doing us several favors in Syria.