War-torn Syria is now markingthe completion of the third year of Russia’s military intervention that played a decisive role in reversing the Bassar al-Assad regime’s ill fortunes.
The reclaiming of the territory from rebel groups by the regime has been recently stalled by a development that may become a prelude to reopening negotiations with the opposition on new terms.
Agreement on the cessation of hostilities and a demilitarized zone around Idlib – the last remaining rebel-held northwestern province – was reached between Russia and Turkey in Sochi about two weeks ago.
The deal has characteristically excluded Iran and effectively overwritten the outcome of the Sept. 7 Iran-hosted tripartite summit of Russia, Turkey and Iran hailed as the one that would finally seal the future of the war-torn nation.
It appears that not yet, at least for time being.
Northwestern Idlib province and adjacent spots of land are now hosting over 3 million people — almost half of them – the internally displaced.
Idlib also is the single remaining de-escalation zones out of four that had been agreed upon by Russia, Turkey and Iran on May 4, 2017.
The de-escalation process has in fact been nothing but a cover-up for a series of brutal offensive operations led by Russia and a host of Iran-sponsored Shia militias under the banners of the regime that had helped Assad gradually reclaim most of the rebel-held areas, including a Damascus suburb Eastern Ghouta, and the southern parts bordering on Jordan and Israel.
Contrary to impression that it createdby looking at the war maps, the regime-sponsored onslaught on the rebel-held areas is leaving in its trail not a unified peaceful land but an unsafe patchwork of areas controlled effectively by various Shia militias local at times, but more often foreign, with deeply frustrated scared and economically devastated populations inside.
How long will Idlib last?
This offensive has now stopped, but it’s still hard to tell for how long.
Should the Iranian preferred approach prevail, a continued air and land campaign against Idlib would generate a far greater human disaster than the one seen so far.
There would be repeated displacement of no less than 1.5 million deeply frustrated people disloyal to the regime that had been forcibly removed from the rebel-controlled areas around Damascus and from areas facing the Jordanian and Israeli borders, who would come banging on the Turkish doors.
The 12 million Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons, of which Turkey is now hosting 3.5 million, are usually seen through a merely humanitarian perspective,
There is a political factor as well.These are mostly people who fled from Assad’s and Russian indiscriminate bombing campaigns that had killed their neighbors and family members, devastated their home villages and towns and ruined civilian infrastructure.
Much as they suffer now, they would only return to Syria without Assad.
While now trying to save Idlib and the remaining opposition forces within it from further destruction, and insisting that Assad should go, Turkey is also acting on the behalf and in the interests of these refugees.
The outcome of the Idlib deal will now depend on how Turkey handles the province handed to it by Putin until Russia might change its mind or Iran would manage to undermine and discredit the Turkish efforts.
Turkey, of course, has promised to Russia to rid the region of a former al-Qaida affiliate now called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (the Levant Liberation Body).
What in fact it will have to do is to beef up the growing number of rebel groups loyal to Turkey under the newly created umbrella – the National Liberation Front – and install an efficient military civilian administration that will govern the region – just as Turkey has already been doing in the Afrin region next door and other border areas west of Euphrates wrested from the Kurdish YPG militia.
Opposition of all colors had been hilarious in its welcoming the newly concluded deal, and the Turks have really something finally to pride themselves on. They are also planning to extend their sphere of control further to the East of Euphrates.
That may be achieved through pushing out the YPG and negotiating with their American sponsors with whom the Kurds had helped defeat the Islamic State. With the U.S. having recently restated the purpose of its continued presence in Syria – from the Obama-proclaimed goal of fighting ISIS – to “until Iran is there,” and the renewed American sanctions against Iran, Iran will probably still continue pushing toward the Iraqi border under the pretext of reinstating Assad’s regime control over eastern Syria. So far such attacks have been successfully repelled by the U.S. forces based in al-Tanf.
Russia’s strategy: Serve as kingmaker
Where is Russia in all this mounting mess?
As the sole party to conflict that can in one way or another connect to all other actors, it will continue balancing the conflicting interests, playing both ends against the middle as it did before, merely to remain presiding over negotiations table and maintaining its hard-won political clout.
Will Russia at some point be prepared to renounce its Iranian allies – something that many regional actors, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies as well Israel, and, probably, the U.S. would hope it could do one day?
Such a U-turn may absolve Russia from many sins. But not yet, perhaps, even though the Idlib deal is pointing to an emergent crack and growing tensions between the two Assad allies.
What Russia will hardly agree to now is the Turkish unspoken but clear proposal to reduce the Syrian conflict to a game of two, splitting Syria up between Russia and Turkey in a hope of ultimately reaching a final solution without Assad.
Such perspective is not in sight for two main reasons: any serious peaceful solution except the one based on Assad victory would reduce Russia’s stakes in the game, which is based solely on a combination of Russian military prevalence and some smart diplomacy. Peace would bring a heavy burden of reconstruction, which Russia simply cannot afford, while if Assad remains in power, Russia may hope that it would be able to trade the reconstruction burden to other international parties interested in ending the war – including oil-rich Arab states and the West.
A new Syrian state that could emerge through such a scheme would, however, be a crippled nation with only a semblance of true sovereignty, illegitimate and oppressive government with millions of its citizens not feeling safe enough to return home. In many ways it would be quite similar to its outlook on the brink of the Arab Spring, but only much worse.
Russia, Iran and Turkey: The unlikely partnership
At the moment, the unlikely partnership of three historic rivals – Russia, Iran and Turkey – that has come to the fore, while other international stakeholders to the Syrian conflict for various reasons have been sidelined or have taken the back seats, now seems to hold the keys to the future of Syria.
Parties to the “Syrian peacemaking process,” as the three nations would prefer to be described is, however, based on a shaky foundation of conflicting agendas, among which Iran appears to harbor the plans most unsettling for other stakeholders.
While Turkey is now mainly concerned with securing its long border with Syria from Kurdish rebels and any likely other security contingency, including the resurgent ISIS, for Iran Syria is merely one playground – although perhaps the main – in a wider campaign aimed at reshaping the entire Middle East and ensuring Iran’s role as the single regional superpower above and ahead of its main rival – Saudi Arabia.
Syria, within this strategy, is allocated a role of a beachhead connecting Iran’s mainland via Iraq, already under the Iranian sway, to the Mediterranean and thus allowing Iran to project power over Israel.
To be able to defeat or at least seriously endanger and undermine Israel would in the Iranian eyes win the hearts and minds of the Arab street and perhaps the entire Muslim world, making thus a reality of the long-aspired goal of exporting their Islamic revolution across the entire region.
In contrast to both Iran and Turkey, the focus of Russia’s interest is located outside the region with various elements in the Syrian puzzle only serving the role of levers or bargaining chips in a greater global game.
The delicacy of Russia’s asymmetric relationship with the two arch-enemies, Israel and Iran, merits a closer look. Russia would hardly indeed wish to see a complete success of the ambitious plans of its current ally.
Ever since the Syrian war brought the Iranian menace to the Israeli doorstep, IDF has been engaged in what they’ve dubbed a “war between the wars: – a military and intelligence effort on the Syrian soil to prevent Iran from becoming capable of directly attacking Israel.
So far, while Israel would target Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, Russia would consistently look the other way. Moreover, the Israeli interference in the Syrian war also unintentionally benefited Russia in a more direct sense. By making Iran vulnerable in Syria, Israel has been helping Russia appear as a stronger and more reliable ally to the Assad regime.
The rivalry between Assad’s two big friends persists and the Russia-Turkey deal over Idlib was clearly meant to signal to Iranians that Russia is still calling the shots. Diplomatically and politically, in a broader than Middle East perspective, a friendly Israel is much more important to Russia than Iran.
Israel hosts a large and politically influential Russophone Jewish community whom Russian policy makers see as an extension of the so-called Russian World. Israel’s Russophone community, for whose hearts and minds Russian influence operations warriors continue to fight tooth and nail, is a valuable asset in the information warfare against Ukraine.
Israel is also seen as a gateway or rather a backdoor to the world of U.S. politics. The recent incident with the downing of Russian Il-20 plane with 16 servicemen and unknown military cargo on board by a crew of Syrian air defense may throw an interesting flashlight on the complexity of Israel – Russia – Iran and Turkey relations.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense statement, amended from the previous version that squarely accused Israel of shooting down the plane, now sounding more trustworthy, the Israeli F-16 used the larger Russian plane as cover, which put it in the line of fire by the Syrian air defense.
The Russian military air traffic over western Syria is dense and the Israelis are not infrequent guests there either. But the fact that such a grave mistake should have occurred precisely on the date of Russia–Turkey summit that frustrated Iranian plans to swiftly do away with the last remaining rebel stronghold in Idlib is rather peculiar.
The downing of the plane occurred on Sept. 17, i.e. by the end of the first day of Russia -Turkey summit in Sochi. Although the ultimate deal on Idlib had not been concluded yet, it had been known by then, where the negotiations that deliberately excluded the Iranian side were heading.
Pro-Russia sympathies among the Syrian military as well as its real influence or even a direct control over some army units could hardly prevent Iran from cultivating their own faithful Shia assets inside the Syrian officer corps.
What this situation reveals – whether it had been a mere coincidence or a deliberate warning signal shot by Iran – is that not only Russia, for all its hard power and diplomatic prowess that it has so far demonstrated in the Syria game, but the entire arrangement that has emerged in support of Assad are extremely fragile and not immune to a serious breakdown.
Oleksandr Bogomolov is director of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Kyiv. He speaks Arabic, Persian, Russian, Ukrainian and English fluently. He graduated from St. Petersburg State University with a master’s degree in Arab and Middle East studies and from the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies with a Ph.D. in Arab linguistics.
