Syria: Russia’s chief concern in Syria is to deny west a victory - by Zaki Laïdi

Vladimir Putin

Moscow will not give up Damascus, as Russia’s foreign minister has made clear – despite rebels’ latest success in targeting the heart of the Assad regime. At stake here, beyond Syria, is the restoration of Russian power in relation to the west.

Russia’s relations with Syria date back to the emigration to Turkey and Syria of Circassian minorities in the 19th century and this link still influences Russia’s perception of the Syrian crisis. The fear is that chaos in Syria, if followed by an Islamist victory, might radicalise the Russian Caucasus .

Russia’s decline in the Middle East began in 1971, when Anwar Sadat. president of Egypt, expelled Soviet military advisers. The Russians were unable to make up for this defeat in the region because

Iraq was too unpredictable and Iran too uncontrollable. Syria has the advantage of being highly predictable and perfectly controllable. It is predictable because Syrians have always known just how far to push against the west or Israel – their realism evident in Damascus’s silence after Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor Syria was building with the help of North Korea. It is also controllable because the country has very few allies besides Russia and Iran. The regime has no cards to play and, despite an apparent opening to the west in recent years, is unreformed.

Moreover, Syria has traditionally been a counterweight to Turkey, especially when Turkish-Syrian relations were troubled. If the Damascus regime fell, Moscow’s southern flank would be weakened. Indeed, the regime’s fall would cut Russia out of the Middle East, where it has met with one setback after another over the past 50 years.

Read more: Russia’s chief concern in Syria is to deny west  a victory - FT.com