February 18, 2016
5:08 am
Putin
bombs and the west blinks
Philip Stephens
Even as Europeans
accuse Moscow of wanting the break-up of the EU, they flirt with
easing sanctions
The contest at the
Munich security conference pitted the ruthless cynicism of Vladimir
Putin’s Russia against the indignant impotence of a divided
Atlantic community. The outcome was never in doubt. Syria was always
going to be the loser.
Dmitry Medvedev, the
Russian prime minister, assured the assembled company that Moscow’s
only goal was to promote peace and security by defeating Islamist
terrorists. World leaders, he offered, should recover a commitment to
“humanity”. All this said as Russian bombs fell on hospitals and
schools in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo. You know where you
are with Mr Putin’s narrow-eyed glower. The soft-spoken dissembling
of the baby-faced Mr Medvedev is truly chilling.
The promised
ceasefire is unlikely to end the killing of civilians in Aleppo. To
the extent that a truce may eventually take hold, it will be when the
Syrian regime and its Russian sponsor have achieved their territorial
goals. As for the west’s demand for the removal of Bashar al-Assad,
the Syrian president, this would now require the US to confront
Russia militarily.
Barack Obama is not
willing to go to war. Those close to the US president say he remains
unmoved by the rising chorus of demands for muscular intervention.
From the Republican right he is accused of surrendering American
leadership; from the liberal wing of his own Democratic party, of
fiddling in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Sure, Mr Obama
responds, Syria has descended into hell but, even if it were
possible, it is not the role of the US to put out the fires. How much
this is simply a hard calculation of the facts on the ground and how
much emotional attachment to his pre-election promise to end
America’s wars in the Middle East, only Mr Obama knows.
Either way,
Washington is left with precious little leverage. John Kerry, the
indefatigable secretary of state, was everywhere and nowhere in
Munich — ceaseless in his efforts to craft some sort of truce but
lacking deterrence or incentives to budge Moscow. Last year the
considered judgment in Washington was that Russian forces in Syria
were heading into a quagmire. Everyone is paying for that
miscalculation.
Reprising past
mistakes — a “safe” zone might have been possible a year or two
ago and the US could have done more than to support the now-vanishing
“moderate” opposition — is not to offer a path out of the mess.
The stakes have escalated. The confrontation between Mr Putin and
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan may yet explode. The tsar at
war again with the sultan is an unnerving thought.
In depth
Syria crisis
News, comment and
analysis about the conflict that has killed thousands and displaced
millions
Russia and Iran have
a simple war aim — to entrench the Alawite-led regime in Damascus
as the only alternative to the Islamist terrorists. The other side
has a multitude of ambitions and priorities, some in conflict with
one another. Washington sees its core interest as the defeat of Isis.
Yet, while the US views the Syrian Kurds as an ally in the fight
against terrorists, Mr Erdogan is shelling them for fear that, with
Russian support, they will establish a putative Kurdish state on
Turkey’s southern border.
Saudi Arabia will
not contemplate the defeat of Isis until the Iranian-sponsored Mr
Assad is removed and the Sunni tribes of northern Iraq secure
self-rule from the Shia government in Baghdad. The US has signed a
nuclear deal with Iran. Its ally in Riyadh sees Tehran as an
existential threat. No one can say what a Syria without Mr Assad
would look like.
Europe is in no
better shape. Overwhelmed by the exodus of Syrian refugees, its
governments complain about the absence of US leadership and charge Mr
Putin with destabilising the EU. Moscow knows well that civilians
driven out of Aleppo may well join the exodus heading west across the
Aegean. Yet do not ask these Europeans for consistency. Even as they
accuse Mr Putin of wanting the break-up of the EU, they flirt with an
easing of sanctions.
European solidarity
has always been over-rated. What is being lost now, though, is even a
basic grasp of collective self-interest. Angela Merkel, the German
chancellor, has been forced to abandon efforts to craft a common EU
position to stem the flow of refugees. The formerly communist states
of east Europe want their western neighbours to shield them against
Mr Putin’s revanchism while they disavow any responsibility for the
refugees.
European solidarity
is over-rated. What is being lost though is even a basic grasp of
collective self-interest
Italy has been
settling old scores with Ms Merkel by blocking refugee funding
promised for Turkey. David Cameron is gambling on a referendum that
could see Britain depart the EU. Sotto voce, France backs Italy’s
impatient call for relaxation of the sanctions imposed on Russia
after its invasion of Ukraine. Thus the Europeans collude with Mr
Putin as authors of their weakness.
If he judges the US
powerless to end the war in Syria, the unravelling of Europe should
worry Mr Obama. The EU, history should remind him, has always been
held together with the glue of the US security guarantee. Maybe
Europe is an infuriating ally but the partnership is pivotal to US
interests.
This may be Mr
Obama’s big mistake. His weighing of the case for and against
intervention in Syria has turned on a narrow definition of national
interest. The Atlantic community’s collective retreat from Munich
carried a different message. There can be no such neat delineation
between events in Syria and the strategic threat from Mr Putin.
philip.stephens@ft.com
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