Due articoli su Asia Times, riguardante le relazioni di potenza Usa-Russia sulla questione siriana. Il primo parla di incompetenza americana e di strategia russa lungimirante, inedita alleanza con i sauditi;
il secondo di utilizzo americano della Russia, temporaneo accordo con essa, e coinvolgimento americano dell’Iran, anti-russo.
– La Russia di Putin elabora una strategia di potenza che tiene presente l’intero scacchiere internazionale, gli Usa di Obama hanno una visione parziale, non tengono presente l’interazione delle varie sfere di interesse.
– Pur non ponendosi un obiettivo immediato, in quanto abile giocatore di scacchi Putin può mettere in difficoltà un avversario meno abile, facendogli compiere errori grossolani per poi sfruttare la situazione.
– Il principale obiettivo di Putin è la restaurare lo status di potenza della Russia, e a questo serve l’importanza del ruolo diplomatico da essa svolto in Siria.
– Già nella prima settimana di agosto la Russia ha avuto un peso crescente nella regione. C’è stata una rivoluzione diplomatica senza precedenti, dopo 40 anni che ne era stata espulsa la Russia è tornata in Egitto, in alleanza tattica con i sauditi, nemici storici nella regione. Non sorprende che i sauditi appoggino i militari contro i Fratelli musulmani, ma che coinvolgano in questo la Russia.
– Ci sono vari motivi per la loro collaborazione (come il controllo dei jihadisti nell’opposizione siriana) ma non sono chiare però tutte le sue implicazioni.
– Dopo l’incontro di Putin con il capo dell’intelligence saudita, il principe Bandar, russi e sauditi hanno comunicato la loro collaborazione per stabilizzare il nuovo governo militare egiziano, in opposizione agli Usa; la Russia ha offerto di vendere all’Egitto le armi che gli Usa non avessero voluto fornire, e i sauditi di pagarle ($15MD).
– la Siria non ha di per sé un reale interesse strategico per la Russia
– economia a pezzi, la guerra civile tra le varie etnie sfocerà in uno spopolamento o in una partizione su modello iugoslavo.
– La sua importanza è data dal rischio che la crisi si espanda nelle aree circostanti, più importanti strategicamente:
– i movimenti jihadisti al suo interno rischiano di formare un terreno di formazione per nuove leve terroriste, sul modello dell’Afghanistan negli anni Novanta e 2000;
– La Siria è un’incubatrice di movimenti nazionali: la maggiore libertà di azione dei suoi 2 milioni curdi può innescare la destabilizzazione della Turchia e di altri paesi con consistenti minoranze curde.
– La guerra settaria tra sunniti e sciiti in corso in Siria potrebbe trasformarsi in un conflitto più grande che coinvolga Iraq e altri Stati della regione.
– Le questioni aperte nella partita per la Russia:
– avere influenza sul mercato del gas naturale prodotto da Israele e dagli altri paesi del Mediterraneo orientale,
– renderli dipendenti da essa per la sicurezza del loro export energetico;
– trasporto di gas e petrolio attraverso il Centro Asia;
– un mercato per l’export russo di armamenti; con il nuovo caccia Sukhoi T-50 compete con gli americani F-35 e F-22;
– i negoziati per l’energia in corso con la Cina;
– la vulnerabilità delle forniture energetiche all’Europa, di cui è il maggior fornitore di energia e sulla quale vuole accrescere la propria influenza,
– la stabilità interna nei paesi confinanti o vicini, Turchia, Irak, Iran compresi;
– aver mano libera contro i terroristi della minoranza musulmana nel Caucaso;
– mantenere l’influenza sui suoi "vicini esteri" in Asia Centrale.
– Se Cina, ma anche Giappone, entreranno nella partita, la situazione si farà più complessa.
———————-
M K Bhadrakumar
– Obama continua a giocare la partita siriana, contrariamente all’impressione che l’abbia lasciata a Putin; Putin ha segnato qualche punto nell’opinione con l’attacco lanciato sul NT, ma è un successo a breve.
Dall’intervista ad Obama, su ABC News, domenica scorsa:
– 1. l’accordo sulle armi chimiche mediato dalla Russia può condurre ad una transizione politica in Siria;
– 2. l’approccio degli Usa alla Russia è selettivo; c’è collaborazione sulle questioni in cui gli interessi convergono;
– 3. inizia il confronto Usa-Iran; Obama ha preso contatti anche con l’Iran per coinvolgerlo nella partita siriana, contando sul ricordo degli attacchi chimici subiti dall’Iran da parte di Saddam Hussein.
– Avvantaggia gli Usa contrapporre Russia a Iran, uno dei principali obiettivi perseguiti nel primo mandato di Obama, quando convinse Mosca a non implementare l’accordo sulla fornitura di missili a Teheran.
– Proposta iraniana di tenere a Teheran il prossimo incontro dei 5+1 (Usa, GB, Francia, Russia e Cina + Germania) sia tenuto.
– Rouhani ha accettato di incontrare il ministro Esteri britannico, Hague, a latere della assemblea Onu a fine mese.
– Obama è riuscito a far ammettere al regime siriano di possedere armi chimiche e ad aderire alla convenzione internazionale che le vieta, e ha costretto la Russia a convincere la Siria a consegnarle.
– È in preparazione una risoluzione modello Irak per il CdS Onu, per verificare l’attuazione dell’accordo siglato a Ginevra, definire il ruolo Onu per l’eliminazione delle armi chimiche, e le misure da imporre in caso di non rispetto.
Commento sul giornale cinese Xinhua:
– L’accordo di Ginevra diminuisce le possibilità di un intervento militare americano, ma presenta delle incertezze, anche sulla possibilità della sua attuazione data la volatilità della situazione, e non esclude l’opzione militare.
– Obama, rispondendo alle critiche interne di indecisione: ho seguito un piano strategico, usare i russi per prendere le armi chimiche della Siria, con il vantaggio aggiuntivo di spalancare la porta a negoziati seri per la transizione politica in Siria;
– non è uno scontro Usa-Russia, che non danneggia gli interessi americani se, nel post-Assad, la Russia vuole avere influenza in Siria;
– il ruolo russo si è limitato all’assunzione della responsabilità di far pressione sul regime Assad.
US plays Monopoly, Russia plays chess
– Americans see individual pieces of geopolitical real estate in isolation, like hotels on the Monopoly board, while the Russians look at the interaction of all their spheres of interest around the globe.
– Syria is of no real strategic interest to Russia, nor to anyone else for that matter. It is a broken wreck of a country, with an irreparably damaged economy, without the energy, water, or food to maintain long-term economic viability.
– The multiethnic melange left in place by British and French cartographers after the First World War has broken down irreparably into a war of mutual extermination, whose only result can be depopulation or partition on the Yugoslav model.
– Syria only has importance in so far as its crisis threatens to spill over into surrounding territories which have more strategic importance. As a Petri dish for jihadist movements, it threatens to become the training ground for a new generation of terrorists, serving the same role that Afghanistan did during the 1990s and 2000s.
As a testing ground for the use of weapons of mass destruction, it provides a diplomatic laboratory to gauge the response of world powers to atrocious actions with comparatively little risk to the participants.
– It is an incubator of national movements, in which, for example, the newfound freedom of action for the country’s 2 million Kurds constitutes a means of destabilizing Turkey and other countries with substantial Kurdish minorities.
– Most important, as the cockpit of confessional war between Sunnis and Shi’ite, Syria may become the springboard for a larger conflict engulfing Iraq and possibly other states in the region.
I do not know what Putin wants in Syria. I do not believe that at this point Russia’s president knows what he wants in Syria, either. A strong chess player engaging an inferior opponent will create complications without an immediate strategic objective, in order to provoke blunders from the other side and take opportunistic advantage. There are many things that Putin wants. But he wants one big thing above all, namely, the restoration of Russia’s great power status. Russia’s leading diplomatic role in Syria opens several options to further this goal.
– As the world’s largest energy producer, Russia wants to enhance its leverage over Western Europe for which it is the principle energy supplier. It wants to influence the marketing of natural gas produced by Israel and other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. It wants to make other energy producers in the region dependent on its good graces for the security of their energy exports.
– It wants to enhance its role as a supplier of military equipment, challenging the American F-35 and F-22 with the new Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter among other things. It wants a free hand in dealing with terrorism among its Muslim minority in the Caucasus.
– And it wants to maintain influence in its so-called near abroad in Central Asia.
American commentators reacted with surprise and in some cases dismay to Russia’s emergence as the arbiter of the Syria crisis. In fact, Russia’s emerging role in the region was already evident when the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar, flew to Moscow during the first week of August to meet with Putin. The Russians and Saudis announced that they would collaborate to stabilize the new military government in Egypt, in direct opposition to the Obama administration. In effect Russia offered to sell Egypt any weapons that the United States declined to sell, while Saudi Arabia offered to pay for them.
– That was a diplomatic revolution without clear precedent. It is not only that the Russians have returned to Egypt 40 years after they were expelled in the context of the real world war; they have done so in tactical alliance with Saudi Arabia, historically Russia’s nemesis in the region.
– Saudi Arabia has an urgent interest in stabilizing Egypt, and in suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudi monarchy nightly views as a risk to its legitimacy. Saudi support for the Egyptian military against the Brotherhood is not surprising; what is most surprising is that the Saudi’s felt to involve Russia.
Although there are a number of obvious reasons for the Saudi’s and Russians to collaborate, for example controlling the jihadists in the Syrian opposition, we do not yet understand the full implications of their rapprochement.
– The Saudis leaked news that they had offered to buy $15 billion worth of Russian weapons in return for Russian help with Assad. Rumors of this kind should not be read at face value. They might be misdirection – but misdirection towards what?
– Putin’s chessboard encompasses the globe. It includes such things as the security of energy exports from the Persian Gulf; the transmission of oil and gas through Central Asia; the market for Russian arms exports; energy negotiations now underway between Russia and China; the vulnerability of Europe’s energy supplies; and the internal stability of countries on or near Russia’s borders, including Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
– For American analysts, most of this chessboard might as well be on the dark side of the moon. We see only what the Russians permit us to see. For example, Moscow first promised to provide Syria with the S-300 air defense system and then withdrew its offer. Saudi Arabia in early August let it be known that it was prepared to buy $15 billion of Russian weapons in return for considerations in Syria. A negotiation of some kind is underway, but we have no idea what kind of carrots and sticks might be involved.
– What we may surmise is that Russia now has much greater capacity to influence events in the Middle East, including the security of energy resources, that it has at any time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. For the time being, it is in Russia’s interest to keep its interlocutory guessing, and to enhance its future strategic options. Russia in effect has placed the burden of uncertainty on the rest of the world, especially upon major economies dependent on Persian Gulf energy exports.
– President Obama evidently considers this arrangement beneficial to his own agenda. The president has no interest whatever in enhancing America’s strategic position in the world; his intent may be to diminish it, as Norman Podhoretz charged in the Wall Street Journal last week, and I argued five years ago. Obama is focused on his domestic agenda.
From that standpoint, handing over responsibility for the Syrian mess is a riskless exercise. American popular revulsion over foreign military intervention is so intense that the voters will welcome any measure that reduces American responsibility for foreign problems. Although the elite of the Democratic Party are liberal internationalists, Obama’s voting support has scant interest in Syria.
– Public commentary on foreign policy is an exercise in frustration under the circumstances. Because America is a democracy, and substantial commitment of resources requires at least some degree of consensus, diplomacy was exceptionally transparent so long as America dominated the field.
– Think tanks, academia and the media served as a sounding board for any significant initiatives, so that important decisions were taken at least in part in the view of the public. That is no longer the case on Vladimir Putin’s chessboard. Russia will pursue a set of strategic trade-offs, but we in the West will not know what they are until well after the fact, if ever.
– Further dimensions of complexity will arise from the eventual response of other prospective players, in particular China, but also including Japan.
– The self-shrinkage of America’s strategic position eliminates the constraint for Russia to choose a particular option. On the contrary, Russia can accumulate positional advantages to employ for particular strategic objectives at its leisure. And Putin will sit silent on his side of the chessboard and let the clock run against his opponent.
Putin may think that he is pre-empting a similar strategy on the part of the West. Fyodor Lukanov wrote on the AI Monitor website last March:
– From Russian leadership’s point of view, the Iraq War now looks like the beginning of the accelerated destruction of regional and global stability, undermining the last principles of sustainable world order. Everything that’s happened since – including flirting with Islamists during the Arab Spring, US policies in Libya and its current policies in Syria – serve as evidence of strategic insanity that has taken over the last remaining superpower.
Russia’s persistence on the Syrian issue is the product of this perception. The issue is not sympathy for Syria’s dictator, nor commercial interests, nor naval bases in Tartus. Moscow is certain that if continued crushing of secular authoritarian regimes is allowed because America and the West support "democracy", it will lead to such destabilization that will overwhelm all, including Russia. It’s therefore necessary for Russia to resist, especially as the West and the United States themselves experience increasing doubts.
– Russians typically assume that Americans think the way they do, gauging every move by the way it affects the overall position on the board. The notion that incompetence rather than conspiracy explains the vast majority of American actions is foreign to Russian thinking. Whatever the Russian leader thinks, though, he will keep to himself.
– After 12 years of writing on foreign policy in this space, I have nothing more to say. The Obama administration has handed the strategic initiative to countries whose policy-making proceeds behind a wall of opacity. Robert Frost’s words come to mind:
Or – as in Robin Williams’ old nightclub impression of then president Jimmy Carter addressing the nation on the eve of World War III: "That’s all, good night, you’re on your own."
Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman. He is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. His book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, It’s Not the End of the World – It’s Just the End of You, also appeared that fall, from Van Praag Press.
MO, Siria, Usa, Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar
It was vintage Barack Obama, hitting back when he is supposed to be at his weakest. The US president said it in a flat tone – almost casually – towards the end of his interview focused on Syria with George Stephanopoulos of ABC news, which was telecast on Sunday.
The exchange was as follows:
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you think Iran makes of all this? … Do you think they can look at all this and say, "Maybe all options aren’t on the table, you’re not willing to use force?"
OBAMA: No, I think – I think the Iranians, who we communicate with – in – indirect ways –
STEPHANOPOULOS: Have you reached out personally to the new president [Hassan Rouhani]?
OBAMA: I have. And – and he’s reached out to me. We haven’t spoken – directly. But –
STEPHANOPOULOS: Letters. OBAMA: Yeah.
The Middle Eastern politics and international security have been thrown into a tizzy.
Obama’s interview was riveted around the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons and the criticism he faced domestically for his apparent zig-zag.
– Obama asserted that he acted according to a game plan to employ the Russians to take out Syria’s chemical weapons on a contract job, as it were, which would also have the tangential gain of opening the door open to serious negotiations for a political transition in Syria.
– But in a display of smart power, he has got in touch – through back channel and personally – with the Iranian leadership with a view to bringing Tehran also into the matrix.
Primary sponsor as broker
§ one, the chemical weapons deal brokered by Russia can lead to political transition in Syria;
§ two, the US approach to Russia remains one of selective engagement; and,
§ three, direct US-Iranian talks are commencing, finally.
– Obama made a persuasive case. He has forced the Syrian regime out of its denial mode to acknowledge for the first time its chemical weapons stockpiles and to join the international convention banning the use of such weapons and got the Russians who are the Syrian regime’s "primary sponsors" to volunteer they’d "push Syria to get all of their chemical weapons out of the country".
– Obama spoke just before the deal was formally struck in Geneva on Saturday, but he fully factored in that the Syrian issue is about to come under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and an Iraq-like framework is being put in place through a UN Security Council resolution that:
– contains steps to ensure verification and effective implementation of the deal;
– defines the UN’s role in eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons;
– provides for Security Council review of the implementation on a regular basis;
– also provides for Security Council imposing "measures" under Chapter VII in the event of non-compliance by Syria.
The Geneva deal also harmonized US and Russian estimation of the amount and type of Syria’s chemical weapons and expects the Syrians to:
turn in within a week their inventory list, including the location and form of storage;
provide "unfettered access" to the UN and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) personnel to "inspect any and all sites" in Syria who will work on the control, removal and destruction of the stockpiles;
– Alongside, Obama maintained that a foundation is also being laid for an international process to begin over a political transition in Syria.
The expectation is predicated on the defanging of the Syrian regime via the Geneva deal and the incremental shift that would follow once Russia realizes that continued support of President Bashar al-Assad is unsustainable in the world opinion.
Obama didn’t speak of regime change as such, but he thinks it is becoming apparent that Assad has lost legitimacy and as long as he remains in power there is going to be "some sort of conflict there" – which in turn would compel Russia to look at a "post-Assad" scenario for Syria.
Wishful thinking
– In this scenario, Obama visualized a major role for Iran in the peace talks. Washington is factoring in that there are diplomatic brownie points to be made out of the genuine horror with which Tehran views the use of chemical weapons in Syria or anywhere, having been a victim of Saddam Hussein’s horrendous attacks during the Iran-Iraq War.
Obama didn’t say anything by way of anticipating the contents of the UN inspectors’ report due for release in New York on Monday, but he seemed to suggest that the Syrian regime’s position – and of "Assad’s sponsors, primarily Iran and Russia" – will become increasingly untenable, which in turn will give impetus to the search for a settlement.
Against this backdrop, Obama held out two tantalizing assurances to Russia (and Iran):
– "The United States can’t get in the middle of somebody else’s civil war. We’re not gonna put troops on the ground. We can’t enforce – militarily – a settlement there."
"… this is not the Cold War. This is not a contest between the United States and Russia. I mean the fact of the matter is that if Russia wants to have some influence in Syria – post-Assad, that doesn’t hurt our interests."
– Obama spoke candidly on US-Russian relations to the point of being blunt. He insisted caustically that he and Putin have nothing in common in terms of values or politics, hinting he is being pragmatic because he needs to work with the Kremlin leader on issues where the interests of the two countries "converge".
– Obama delimited Putin’s "important role" as one of volunteering to take up "responsibility for pushing … [Moscow’s] client, the Assad regime". Obama hit hard where it hurts, saying,
Well – you know, Ronald Reagan said, "Trust but verify." And I think that that’s always been the experience of US presidents when we’re interacting with – first, Soviet leaders, and now Russian leaders.
Nonetheless, Obama explained, working with Putin despite "strong disagreements on a whole range of issues" has been profitable. He listed as example the Northern Distribution Network to supply the North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan.
Clearly, if anyone in Moscow ever fancied that working together on Syria would make Russia an "equal partner" for the US, it was wishful thinking.
Templates shifting …
– All in all, Obama underscored that selective engagement of Russia will be his mantra and he will remain wary of Russian intentions. It’s not difficult to see that after the affair of the ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden, where Moscow outmaneuvered Washington brilliantly, something has changed in the way Obama is going to deal with Russia in the remainder of his term.
Obama will deal with Russia to the minimum extent necessary limited to specific issues but beyond that there is unlikely to be any interest in reviving or recasting the reset.
– It indeed comes as surprise that Obama harped on the US-Russia differences and what differentiates him from Putin just when their foreign ministers displayed great bonhomie in Geneva. A Beijing datelined Xinhua commentary on Sunday probably hit the nail on the head:
– The diplomatic breakthrough [in Geneva] lessened the possibility of US military action for the moment … Clouds of uncertainty, however, loom over the deal. And concerns regarding the upcoming implementation process persist. … For one thing, the deal, though prescribing no military options, does not rule out the possibility of military intervention; for another, Syria’s volatile situation could still hamper or even halt the agreement’s implementation.
In other words, the two-faceted Syrian crisis, an ongoing civil war plus threats of foreign military intervention, suggests a bumpy road ahead when the agreement is to be carried out.
The stunning part of the ABC interview was Obama’s tacit acknowledgement that the templates beneath the great US-Iran standoff have finally begun to move.
… as estranged allies meet
– Interestingly, on Saturday, the influential chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, Alaeddin Broujerdi, suggested that the next round of the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) talks might be held in Tehran. If that were to happen, a visit by a top US diplomat to Tehran becomes necessary and it would be the first since the US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7, 1980.
– Again, Tehran also announced on Sunday that Rouhani has "agreed to meet" British Foreign Secretary William Hague "at London’s request" on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York later this month.
In sum, traction can develop in the incipient US-Iranian engagement much sooner than one may imagine. What is the big picture?
To be sure, Obama continues to dribble with the Syrian ball, contrary to an erroneous impression that he gave it away to Putin for good and left the soccer field for the stands.
– Obviously, Putin’s scathing criticism of US policies in his controversial op-ed in the New York Times last week in full view of the American public did touch a raw nerve in the White House – especially his mockery of America’s exceptionalism. Putin may have scored in public diplomacy but it may prove a short-lived success.
– Thirdly, from the American viewpoint, it pays to play the Russians and against the Iranians. The Russian-Iranian ties have been under stress and mutual trust is lacking.
– Washington ought to know this better than anybody, because one of the key objectives of the US-Russia reset during Obama’s first term was to derail Russia-Iran relations by persuading Moscow to resile from the S-300 missile deal with Tehran.
– In fact, Obama mentioned more than once Iran’s role in negotiating a Syrian settlement. He said he trusted the Iranians to have the intellectual sophistication to figure out that the latest happenings over the Syrian chemical weapons testify to the "potential of resolving these issues diplomatically".
Obama estimated that negotiations with Iran are going to be difficult but expressed optimism that "you can strike a deal" if the US combines its credible threat of force with a "rigorous diplomatic effort".
– On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek last week, both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin discussed the nuclear issue with Rouhani. It is unclear whether Rouhani took Xi and Putin into confidence regarding his communications with Obama. At any rate, Obama’s comments foreclose the need of any third-party role in the US-Iran tango.
Obama knows Iranians, too, prefer to keep things that way – direct cogitation without third parties tapping into the electrified air when two long-estranged allies get along together again.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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