May 20, 2020
THANKS, UR!:
FOR ALL ITS SUCCESS PROPPING UP ASSAD, RUSSIA CAN'T STABILIZE SYRIA ALONE (COLIN P. CLARKE AND WILLIAM COURTNEY, 5/20/20, Newsweek)
After mounting frustration, Moscow finally seems to be growing weary of its Syrian burden. Last month a prominent retired Russian diplomat wrote on an influential website that Syria was a "humanitarian disaster." A "new military reality cannot be sustained without economic reconstruction and development of a political system that will truly rest on an inclusive approach and international consent."The Kremlin may be running out of patience with Assad, but is unlikely to abandon the regime. Syria is Russia's only major Mideast ally. Russia's outsized role there is key to its wider great power aims.Moscow has shown some interest in a political solution. In 2016, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry announced several ceasefires, but they were violated and fell apart. Lavrov said Syria was a "quagmire" and the "time is ripe for compromise."
It required a profound misunderstanding of both Syria and Russia to think this intervention was anything but disastrous for Vlad.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 20, 2020 1:27 PM