Syria has been perhaps the most heavily covered middle east country in the news for the past quarter of the year, with many varying yet interconnected subjects of interest such as the mass refugee movement out of Syria or of course the much more direct topic of ISIS or the Asaad regime. And the most influential state within the borders of Syria has been predominantly Vladimir Putin and the Russians as of late. Putin been a thorn in the side of America on a global stage the past few years and now he is directly supporting a regime which the US has blatantly declared to be an enemy of justice. Many in the US have been criticizing the response of the White House to Putin’s actions saying that it is not enough, but is it really?
In reality the reaction to Putin’s behavior has been too robust. Is it unreasonable to view Putin as antagonistic towards America? Perhaps not, but it is unreasonable to assume antagonizing America is his only goal, Syria is not on the border of Russia but it is a great deal closer to Russia than it is to any other world power (unless you count Israel as a world power) and the points Putin makes for defending the state is sound, at least in a historical sense. In the past when the US has assisted in the ousting of a tyrannical leader who has his country in stable, yet cruel, control the resulting power struggle has led to even worse chaos for the country and very often results in anarchy. If the Russians or Chinese started funding, or providing military support to Venezuelan rebel citing human rights violations which the Venezuelan government has committed towards its population the United States would be in an uproar, there is no doubt the US population would demand strong military response. Yet when Putin’s response is essentially the same or perhaps even more tame than a hypothetical American reaction it is inappropriate?
In this sense it is understandable for Putin to want to keep Asaad in power, with the big elephant in the room being that Putin does not acknowledge the Asaad regime’s treatment of its people as well as its apparent support for the Islamic State. The catalyst or common enemy in this regard which bind ISIS, the Asaad Regime and Putin together in this scenario is the United States intervention in the Middle East. Which ultimately is a result of Putin’s oppositional inclination towards US global relations.
Russia is a significantly less wealthy state than the US, indeed the most influential factor of Russian global authority is the control which Putin has over a vast majority of the earth’s nuclear weaponry. Meaning there is no way that Putin would waste any portion of his country’s GDP to fund Syrian military forces unless he felt he had a good reason for it, if the US withdraws from the Syrian conflict The Asaad regime would have immensely less opposition and the rebels in that country would not have the funding to continue a war against their own government. More importantly Russia would have no reason to fund a regime that is not in conflict with Putin’s “opponent”. There is no doubt that Russian financial support for Asaad would continue for a time but after realizing that there is no political value to continue funding a government which does not serve his purposes any longer Putin would be forced to significantly cut back his financial support of the Syrian government which would in turn lessen the amount of money the Syrians would be able to funnel to ISIS. Short term the idea may seem cowardly and immoral towards the suffering Syrian population, long term however the benefits of improving relations with Putin in addition to reducing the funding of the Islamic State is benefactory to the US international relations. Citing human rights misconduct is not a reason for the US instigate continued conflict in the middle east. There is no doubt a military and economic purpose to the US presence in Syrian politics however it is not worth the economic and military support that Washington is willing to commit to the conflict. The safest political decision is for Washington to remove Syria from its horizon before it is impossible to securely disengage from the immense negative potentials that come from this relatively insignificant conflict.
Michael Johnson
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