The Assad family regime that ruled Syria for 50 years collapsed in 11 days. Vladimir Putin kept Bashar al-Assad from losing the civil war for nearly 10 years. But even he didn’t step up to save a dictator friend who had lost his support.
It is too early to talk about the future of Russian military bases in Syria, but it is a subject for discussion with whoever is in power in Damascus, Putin’s spokesman Dmitrii Peskov said. “Everything that is necessary and everything that is possible is being done now in order to get in contact with those who can deal with security,” he said.
So far, a TASS source in the Kremlin assured TASS, “opposition leaders have guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on Syrian territory.” The Russian embassy in Damascus has not been damaged.
According to some diplomats involved in Saturday’s Syria talks between Russia, Iran, Turkey and leading Arab countries in Doha, hours before Assad fled, Russia likely received assurances that it could retain bases during the transition period, the WSJ writes. In addition, most of the weapons seized from Assad are of Russian and Soviet origin, so the new government may be interested in some military cooperation with Moscow, suggests Ammar Kahf, executive director of the opposition-affiliated Omran think tank.
These bases play an important role in Russia’s ability to influence the Middle East and Africa, where it is involved in conflicts in Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali and Niger.
What has happened will have a strong impact on the Middle East. Badr Jamous, a leading Syrian opposition politician, told WSJ, “Turkey has gotten stronger, Russia has gotten weaker, Iran has gotten weaker. But it is the Syrians who will now play a bigger role.” Turkey has been the main patron of the Syrian opposition.
“What happened is a huge blow to Russia’s regional influence and prestige,” says Aleksandr Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies in Berlin.
It’s bad in principle for Russia to get involved in a foreign war in the middle of nowhere, said Konstantin Sonin, an economics professor at Harvard University and a columnist for The Moscow Times. The same mistake was repeatedly made by the Soviet Union. “Foreign policy adventures, spending to support unviable regimes, and military aid to anyone, of course, are not the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR,” Sonin says. – But by 2015, everything was forgotten in Russia. The same dynamic was repeated again: the leadership benefits from isolationism, the military benefits from orders for another unnecessary, easy victory, and the military-industrial complex benefits from money spent on creating weapons that burn up in war.
