“A grand bargain with
Putin is still a long shot. In terms of domestic politics, the
initial consequence would be catcalls from the right. But if the
result were to end the civil war in Syria, reverse territorial gains
of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and ease the refugee crisis in Europe, and
reduce the capacity of ISIS to menace the West, the jeers would turn
to cheers.”
Robert Kuttner
A
Grand Bargain With Putin Against ISIS?
What
follows is not very pretty. But it may be the best option available
in a crisis without good options.
Robert Kuttner
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Co-founder and
co-editor, 'The American Prospect'
Posted: 11/15/2015
9:01 pm EST
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has made no secret of the fact that he would like some
kind of political settlement with the West. The German magazine Der
Spiegel has just published a leaked official Russian memo outlining a
proposed grand bargain in which Putin eases out its close ally,
Syrian President Assad, in favor of a still pro-Russian regime that
at least stops killing its own people. In return the West
acknowledges what has been an open secret for several decades--that
Syria is Russia's sphere of influence in the Arab world.
Then the U.S.,
Russia, Iran, and the rest of the grand coalition can get on with the
urgent business of eliminating or at least drastically weakening
ISIS. Greater progress on getting rid of Assad was raised at a
strategy conference on Syria held in Vienna earlier this week that
included senior diplomats from the U.S., Russia, Iraq and several
other nations. No grand bargain was reached but the idea will surely
be raised again at the G-20 Summit now under way in Turkey.
Until the Paris
attacks, there was little enthusiasm in the West for this approach.
Putin, after all, is a thug and he has put Russia on an expansionist
course. On the other hand, maybe a grand bargain with Putin against
ISIS is not so crazy.
As part of the deal,
the U.S. and Russia would have to reach some understanding about how
to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, probably acknowledging a
Russian sphere of influence in the eastern, Russian-speaking part of
the country. That is not pretty either.
But then the great
powers would actually have a real chance of reversing the territorial
gains of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, restoring stability to Syria, which
in turn would slow the torrent of refugees now engulfing Europe,
increasing votes for far-right parties, and undermining the European
Union. Maybe that's not such a bad bargain.
Right now, the U.S.,
Russia, and to some extent Iran are each pursuing inconsistent
military actions against ISIS rather than collaborating. That's
really crazy.
Would we be selling
out the promise of a democratic Syria? It's not as if any of the
regimes in the Middle East are Jeffersonian democracies, or have any
chance of becoming so any time soon.
During World War II,
the U.S. and the far more repressive Soviet Russia were allies
against an even worse Nazi regime. We gave the Soviets Lend Lease
aid, to help them destroy the Wehrmacht after Hitler's worst blunder
of the war, his invasion of Russia.
As the War was
ending, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill took the lead at the
Yalta conference of February 1945 in negotiating post-war spheres of
influence, acknowledging Stalin's demands for client states on the
USSR's near borders. That was not pretty either; it was outrageous.
What the West did
not give Russia, Stalin took by military occupation. But the
alternative was probably a pivot from an exhausting war against
Hitler to a shooting war against Stalin. Nobody wanted that. It took
another forty years for communism to finally collapse.
Churchill had habit
of making such deals. After World War I, it was Churchill who carved
up the Middle East into its current sheikdoms and kingdoms, partly
for geo-political reasons and partly to make deals between client
states and Western oil companies. This was also far from pretty, and
it seeded the ground for much of today's anti-Western rebellions in
the region. What goes around comes around.
But there are truly
ugly, and not so ugly, versions of realpolitik. The Middle East
imperialism of the younger Churchill was an outrage that took the
better part of a century to backfire on the West. The deal at Yalta
in 1945 probably gave Stalin more territory than the West had to.
On the other hand,
the wartime alliance with the loathsome Soviet dictator was
absolutely necessary to defeat Hitler. Which brings me back to Putin.
A few commentators,
such as the Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen, have argued that it is
at least partly the fault of the West that Putin is now our enemy.
Russia, Cohen contends, has legitimate security interests like any
other great power. From Russia's perspective, expanding NATO to
Russia's very borders and colluding in the overthrow of a pro-Moscow
government in Kiev were gratuitous provocations. For this argument,
Cohen has been excoriated in in leftwing and rightwing publication
alike.
I don't share
Cohen's analysis, but he is right on one point. Russia and the U.S.
do potentially have some common interests.
The attacks on Paris
demonstrate that ISIS and its local sympathizers are capable of
hitting civilian targets almost at will. Unlike al-Qaeda, ISIS is
partly decentralized, and far more difficult for police and
intelligence to infiltrate or monitor.
On the other hand,
fanatical zealots tend to overreach, just as Hitler disastrously
overreached when he invaded Soviet Russia. In its recent actions,
ISIS has over-reached.
In the past few
weeks, ISIS or its sympathizers blew up a Russian civilian airliner
and suicide-bombed a neighborhood in Beirut controlled by Hezbollah,
in addition to its barbaric attacks in Paris. This all may be
consistent with ISIS's warped world view--but it is strategic
insanity. You can't attack everybody without bringing everybody into
a coalition against you.
It's no accident
that the Putin memo was leaked to a German magazine. Chancellor
Angela Merkel, who grew up in Soviet-occupied East Germany, is fluent
in Russian. Putin, who was a KGB agent in East Germany, is fluent in
German. The two leaders speak at least weekly. The idea of such a
grand bargain surely has some appeal to Merkel, as the refugee crisis
increasingly threatens her own leadership in Germany.
A grand bargain with
Putin is still a long shot. In terms of domestic politics, the
initial consequence would be catcalls from the right. But if the
result were to end the civil war in Syria, reverse territorial gains
of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and ease the refugee crisis in Europe, and
reduce the capacity of ISIS to menace the West, the jeers would turn
to cheers.
In a nation such as
ours that cherishes democracy, this brand of realpolitik is never
pretty--and it can be executed well or badly. It makes strategic
sense only when all the other options are worse.
Robert Kuttner is
co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis
University's Heller School. His latest book is Debtors' Prison: The
Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility.
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