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Analysis: What’s Really Behind Putin’s Behavior In Syria?
The Syrian war entered a new phase on Wednesday when Russian airplanes bombed several targets in the Homs Province in northwest Syria.
General Igor Kanashenkov explained on Russian television that 20 Russian fighter jets had bombed at least six targets that were selected in coordination with the Syrian army. The attack was directed at weapon depots belonging to unspecified Islamist rebel groups, the general said.
You can watch Kanashenkov and images of the air strike in the Russian TV report here:
Western governments, including the United States, were quick to condemn the Russians for not attacking Islamic State. According to some media reports, the first series of strikes targeted the Free Syrian Army, the Western-backed pro-democratic rebel group that would dominate this area. But the area is known to be a longtime hotbed of Sunni Islamists.
Today, Russian warplanes again attacked rebel positions in the same area.
Lebanese media reported on 30 strikes that targeted the Jaish al-Fatah coalition (Army of Conquest) in rural areas near the northwestern town of Jish al-Shughour.
The Russian actions are consistent with the overall strategy by the Iranian-Russian dominated P4+1 coalition that aims to drive opposition groups out of the border area with Lebanon, western Homs Province and the coastal plain where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite home base and Syria’s only ports are located.
The newly-formed coalition wants to secure Assad’s rule over the Damascus area and the above-mentioned territories, plus the Kuneitra Province, which is bordering Israel on the Golan Heights.
This is the main reason Putin yesterday ordered a Russian three-star general to tell the U.S. Embassy in Bagdad that the U.S-led coalition air force should clear the air space in Syria where Russia intended to strike.
The Russian request caught the U.S. central command off guard again. Centcom had a similar experience afterTurkey joined the battle against Islamic State. At the time, a high-ranking Turkish officer entered the operations room of Centcom in Iraq and told commanders that coalition airplanes should clear the skies above the Kurdish autonomous area in Iraq so that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s air force could bomb PKK positions.
Obama officials made clear that the Russian action, in fact, contradicted the understandings reached during the frosty meeting between Putin and Obama at the General Assembly of the United Nations. These understandings aimed to “de-conflict” military operations in Syria, the officials noted, while adding that this is not the way “responsible nations do business.”
From Putin’s point of view, the request was quite logical. His prime interest is not to join the battle against Islamic State, but to help consolidate the rule of his ally Assad in Syria and to put Russia firmly on the future map of the Middle East. By demanding that the U.S.-led coalition leave the skies in Western Syria, he made clear that from now on, the rules of the game have changed.
Russia will do whatever it takes to safeguard its interests in the region, even if it means upsetting the U.S. administration.
Putin learned from Obama’s handling of the chemical weapons crisis in Syria and his approach to the Crimea crisis that he can act as the neighborhood bully without any serious consequences.
We can therefore assume that the ‘crisis‘ that erupted between the U.S. and Russia yesterday will result in the first no-fly zone during the four-year long Syrian war: one that will be off-limits for the U.S-led coalition.
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/analysis-whats-really-behind-putins-behavior-in-syria/
