Syria and Isis: Should We Deal with Putin?

September 30, 2015, 12:25 PM GMT+0

World leaders have been meeting at the United Nations in New York and top of the agenda for most of them has been what to do about the Syrian civil war and the dramatic successes of Isis.

The western world has watched in horrort as this brutal Islamic force has taken control of much of Syria, large parts of western Iraq and declared itself a caliphate over the region. But Vladimir Putin has a plan. He says Russia wants to create ‘a coordination centre open to representatives of all countries that are interested in combating terrorism’. But the plan has been rebuffed by the United States and its allies, including Britain. Are we right to snub the Russian president?

Isis’s success has been extraordinarily swift. It seized the opportunity provided by the hideous civil war in Syria, which was triggered four years ago by the brutal clampdown on its majority Sunni population by the regime of Bashir al-Assad ISIA wants not only not only to take control of much of the country but also to kill off the so-called moderate opposition to Assad which western governments had hoped would bring about his fall. It has also exploited the deep resentments of Sunni Iraqis towards the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad to sweep into western Iraq and take strategic cities such as Mosul.

So far Western strategy to deal with Isis has seemed to many incoherent and ineffective. When the Syrian civil war began, the United States and its allies called for the removal of the Assad regime but failed to help the moderate Sunnis fighting it. When Assad crossed what Barak Obama had himself called the ‘red line’ of using chemical weapons against his own civilians the American president did nothing, following the decision of the British parliament to block David Cameron’s plan to join the US in air strikes against Assad regime positions.

Once Isis entered the picture western governments were faced with the problem of how to deal with the fact that they were opposed to both the main players in the civil war. No clear strategy of what to do emerged. American and allied airstrikes on Isis positions in both Syria and Iraq inflicted damage but did not change the basic equation. So far around 250,000 people have been killed in the civil war and Syrian refugees are pouring into Europe.

Russia has a much clearer sense of what it wants to happen - and for a very simple reason. It is not opposed to both sides in the war, but only one: the terrorists of Isis. From the beginning Russia has supported the Assad regime, a longtime ally. In its support for Assad it is joined by the government of Iran, a Shia country that does not want to see Syria fall to militant Sunnis.

As Assad’s position has weakened, President Putin has come to his aid, deploying, in recent weeks, aircraft, troops and missiles to Syria, through Latakia, its Mediterranean port where Russia has a base. Alongside this military assistance, President Putin is making his diplomatic move, calling for greater international coordination in helping Assad to defeat Isis. At the UN on Monday Mr Putin said: ‘It is an enormous mistake to refuse to co-operate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face.’

But the United States has rejected the Russian initiative. President Obama boasts a coalition of his own, amounting to sixty countries around the world, but including neither Russia nor Iran, which have such influence on the Assad regime. For the United States, accepting the Assad government would seem more than a step too far. In the first place, Assad’s human rights record could hardly be worse. Secondly, to work alongside Assad would amount to a colossal U-turn and a huge diplomatic triumph for Russia over the United States: Mr Obama’s critics deride him for his failure to respect his own red-line policy on Assad’s use of chemical weapons and to be baled out by Putin, who arranged for all Assad’s stocks of chemical weapons to be removed from the country. Mr Obama knows too that to co-operate with Assad would alienate powerful Sunni governments in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states.

David Cameron is, unsurprisingly, in the Obama caqmp and says that even if it were right to work with Assad (which he said it wasn’t), it wouldn’t work because Assad is no longer seen as legitimate in his own country.

Yet despite this apparent stand-off, the United States and Russia are still talking to each other about the issue. Initially discussions were between defence ministers, then foreign ministers, but in New York on Monday the American and Russian presidents talked for ninety minutes. The west is also talking to Iran, following the deal on its nuclear programme; Mr Cameron met Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president for forty-five minutes in New York.

These talks appear to have led Western governments to shift their position somewhat. They remain opposed to Assad staying in power in any final settlement, but they have moved toward the Russian position to the extent of acknowledging that he may have to do so during the transition to such a settlement. Some observers suggest that, in any case, neither Russia nor Iran is absolutely committed to keeping Assad himself in power. What both countries want most of all is a stable government in Damascus that respects Russian and Iranian interests in the region. So maybe the west is edging its way towards greater cooperation with Russia and Iran.

Nonetheless, scepticism about Russia’s aims is intense. Many observers see President Putin as simply playing a game over Syria and Isis. They see him as trying to divert world attention from its flouting of international law in the Ukraine, and distracting his home audience from the fast-worsening economic situation this has brought about. His great goal, they say, is to prove to everyone that Russia is still a great world power and to do so by being the author of a plan that ends the Syrian civil war, lifts the pressure of the refugee crisis and puts together a world coalition against Isis. If he can do this, they warn, he will ‘get away’ with what he has done in Ukraine.

Should the West go along with this? Some would argue that there is no way of dealing with Isis and Syria unless Russia is on board. Others say the price of dealing with Putin is just too high.

What’s your view? Let us know.

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