Week twenty-one of the Russian military intervention in Syria: the calm before the storm?
TheVineyard of the Saker,
6 March, 2016
This
article was written for the Unz
Review:http://www.unz.com/tsaker/week-twenty-one-of-the-russian-military-intervention-in-syria-the-calm-before-the-storm/
The
ceasefire in Syria (which
is not really a ceasefire,
but rather a “focusing of combat operations”) is holding
surprisingly well. This is primarily due to the brilliant tactic of
forcing each fighting group in Syria to define itself either as a
“good moderate”, and be guaranteed safety, or as as en “evil
terrorist” and become an indisputably legitimate target which
anybody can engage. De
jure, the
only ones who can legally engage anybody in Syria are only the
Russians and the Syrians, everybody else, including the US-led
coalition, is present there in total illegality, but de
facto the
latest agreement also acknowledges the right of all parties to engage
the “evil terrorists”. By forcing each group to self-define
itself the Russians have completely taken away any credibility from
the rather ludicrous accusation that they were bombing the “good
terrorists”, the latter category having basically disappeared from
the conflict. And to be really honest and blunt about it, the US has
been forced to accept the Russian definition of a terrorist as
“anybody who fights against the Syrian government”. Oh, I know,
they never agreed to such a wording, but since those who until now
fought were categorized into “good” and “bad” opposition to
the Syrian government and since now the “good opposition” accepts
the truce/ceasefire, that means that all those who fight against the
government areipso
facto “bad”.
Thus anybody taking up arms against the Syrian government is “bad”
and a legitimate target for total elimination. QED.
The
worst part for the Americans must have been that they waltzed into
this conceptual trap with their eyes absolutely open, but that they
could do nothing about it. They knew that their only chance to avoid
a humiliating military defeat on the ground was to transmogrify it
into a “ceasefire” followed by some kind of vague “transition”.
So yeah, they hate this outcome, but the other one was even worse.
Besides, some officials no doubt realized that the American policy in
Syria was totally insane, bordering on a kind of dissociative
identity disorder in which various agencies were not aware of what
the others were doing and, in some cases, were even literally
fighting each other on the ground. To persist on such an absolutely
crazy course was bringing the risk of a major war with Russia,
something neither the Europeans nor a big part of the (non-Neocon) US
deep state really wanted. So while we can legitimately pour scorn on
the imbecility of the Obama Administration’s policy in Syria, let
us always also remember that it could have been worse (just imagine
Hillary in the White House!). By stepping back from the brink the USA
did the right thing.
And
it’s not like we should choke up on gratitude either. First, the
USA created his mess to begin with and, second, it’s not like right
now they have fully recovered their sanity either. Not only is the
USseething
at its humiliation by Russia but
now some die-hard Neocons want to try Assad,
Russia, Iran for ‘war crimes’ in Syria!
That nonsense is the direct result from this uniquely American mix of
delusion and impotent rage about Russia and, really, the entire
world. Something like a child breaking a toy he was told he could not
have. While I would never discount the possibility of the USA doing
something really reckless, the main danger today, as before, comes
not from the USA but from the toxic and explosive Turkey+Saudi combo.
Ankara
and Riyadh are giving all the signs of being up to no good. Not only
does their rethoric remain bellicose, they are also playing all sorts
of very dangerous military games: in a display of total
irresponsibility and recklessness Saudi Arabia has reportedly engaged
150’000 troops in what the Saudis describe as “the
2nd largest military gathering since Desert Storm”.
Other sources (here and here)
speak of 350’000 troops (20 countries are now officially
participating in these exercises). The Saudis have also moved
4 F-15S to the Incirlik air base in
Turkey. This is not much, but this could be just a “tripwire force”
which, if attacked, could justify the engagement of a much larger and
reasonably modern Saudi Air Force (roughly 300 combat aircraft, 5
AWACS and 5 aerial refueling aircraft). Add in the Turkish Air
Force (roughly 250 combat aircraft, 4 AWACS and 7 areal refueling
aircraft) and you will see that the threat to the tiny Russian
Aerospace task force (50 combat aircraft) is very real, even if the
Russian pilots and their aircraft are quite superior to anything the
Turks or Saudis have. The Iranians also
feel threatened and
are warning against an invasion of Syria.
So
how big is this Saudi-Turkish threat really?
It
really depends on your assumptions.
If
you assume that the Turks and the Saudis are rational actors,
then the threat is not that big. For one thing, even if this “Wahabi
coalition” brings in a lot of airpower, their ground forces, while
large, are far away from the conflict zone and do not have what it
takes to take on the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah forces on the ground.
And since airpower alone cannot win a war, the only ground force the
Turks and Saudis could count on would be Daesh. Not a good option at
all, not militarily not politically. However,If
you assume that the Turks and the Saudis have “lost it” and are
lashing out in frustration over their failure to overthrow Assad and
take control over Syria, then they most definitely can bring about a
direct conflict which Russia: since they tiny Russian force in Syria
cannot protect itself against such a large adversary, Russia would
have no other option than to bring her long range strike capabilities
(Aerospace Forces, cruise and ballistic missiles) into the fight.
Even more relevantly, Russia would have to strike at the Turks and
the Saudis who would be operating from air bases shared with the US
(CENTCOM) and NATO in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Also, in case of such
a brazen Saudi-Turkish attack on Russian Forces I would fully expect
Russian MiG-31s (possibly operating from Iran) to engage enemy
aircraft. At the end of the day, neither Iran nor Russia will allow
the Wahabis to overrun Syria and thus the Turks and Saudis need to
ask themselves if they really want a war against Russia, Iran, Syria
and Hezbollah, especially a war in which both Russia and Iran can,
and probably will, strike at their domestically deployed military
forces and their support infrastructure?
A
more likely scenario is that the US, Turkey and the KSA are trying to
find some way to rescue Daesh and to carve up some “Syrian
Wahabistan” which could be used to keep Syria weak and bleeding for
the foreseeable future. This is clearly the options the Israelis also
favor: to break up Syria into a de
factoSyrian
Kurdistan in the north, a Wahabistan in the east and a secular Syrian
republic along the Mediterranean coast. The fact that all this is in
total contradiction with the decisions of the UN Security Council
apparently does not bother those who are now contemplating such
options.
It
appears that we are in the proverbial “calm before the storm” and
that the war in Syria will soon re-ignite with a possibility even
bigger intensity than so far.
The
Saker
PS:
it appears that Turkish
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has now traveled to Tehran to
speak with his Iranian counterpart. Good. God willing the
Iranians will hammer some sanity into the Turkish rulers
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