Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[Dayuhan]

My original narrow point regarding Russia was that Putinistan, a state with a lot of problems, punches above their weight because we ascribe to them power that they don't actually have. The above short list is a quite excellent illustration of the line of thinking that results in that.

My original point was that the Russians don't need to punch very hard, or to have much power, to make life difficult for any intervening power in Syria. Neither does Iran. Neither does Hezbollah. None of them are great superpowers, none of them can fight the US and win, all of them can and will make life miserable for anyone foolish enough to get bogged down in that particular quagmire. Worth noting that while the Russians are more than willing to offer material and ideological support to Assad, they don't want to put people in there either: they know where that would go, and they know that once entrenched it would be easy for their rivals to make their lives miserable.

One of the realities of quagmires is that once you're in one, your antagonists don't have to be great powers or heavyweight punchers to make your life difficult.

It's normal enough to be frustrated by the realities of American governance (democracy can be such a pain but if you're going to suggest that effective action would be possible with better leadership, you might consider clarifying what action you think would be effective and what you think those actions might achieve.

The US operates under a real constraint in Syria, the constraint being that the US electorate is in no mood to countenance another military adventure in the Muslim world, especially with no clear and immediate threat to US interests and no clear and achievable objective. I have yet to see any coherent argument against that position, and I think the US electorate is showing a good deal of sense.

PS: The "inside the Beltway" crowd is not exactly unaware that Europe would benefit from diversifying its energy sources, as evidenced here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42405.pdf

Still, there's no reason to think that anything the US does on that score is going to change the Russian position on Syria, or act as an effective constraint on Russian action in Syria.