Originally Posted by
Azor
If you had actually read my comments on this thread, you would have noticed that I never suggested for an instant that Russia could be pushed out of Syria. My thinking was always along the lines of Assad and Khamenei wanting to conquer the entire country, and Putin wanting a secure pro-Russian enclave in the west, which he more or less has.
Putin seems reluctant to help Assad reconquer the Sunni Arab center and east, to say nothing of the Sunni Kurdish north. Yet Putin is in no position to oust Assad in favor of a less greedy Alawi leader. Assad would have to be on the brink of defeat and a rebel offensive into Latakia before Putin would have the leverage over both Khamenei and Assad’s supporters.
Currently, only the U.S. can drive a wedge between Putin and Assad/Khamenei, but far more than the fate of Syria would be at stake. As a first step, I would repeat my earlier recommendation to treat all foreign Shia militias and the entire IRGC as FTOs, and target them whenever they are on the offensive in Sunni Arab or mixed areas to drive them either to the western enclave or out of Syria.
There are fears and goals that Putin states openly, and ones that he does not. For instance, his violation of the INF Treaty has nothing at all to do with Russia-NATO tensions, but China’s military capabilities. Despite his use of force to deter further EU and/or NATO expansion, Putin is equally wary of China’s bid for mastery in Central Asia.
The West is an easier target for Putin, because it is fairly conciliatory with regard to Russia, and because China’s conventional capabilities are incredibly threatening. The West has no interest in Russian territory, but the same is not true of China, which looks greedily at the sparsely-inhabited and resource-rich Siberian and Far Eastern districts. Ideally, Putin wants the U.S. out of Europe and China focused southeast, in order for Russia to be the leading power of Eurasia by virtue of its first-among-equals status in Russian-led European and Central Asian coalitions.
The Kurds naturally want an independent Kurdish state, not reintegration into Syria. In northern Iraq and northern Syria that ship has sailed. The more important question is how to make Rojava more democratic and liberal along the lines of the KRG, rather than allowing it to remain under one-party PYD/PKK rule.
Yes, Assad wants to keep the Civil War sectarian so as to ensure the loyalty of the Alawis, Christians and Druze; atrocities against Sunni Arabs also help in this regard because they make peace and reconciliation difficult if not impossible. Such tactics were also used by Stalin and Hitler.
Regardless, Syria’s existence as a unitary state is over. Even if it can be kept as a weak and federalized state, the ripple effects will destabilize Iraq, Turkey and Iran, and may radiate further into Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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