The Syrian crisis; new Russian-NATO complications

Observers who look for any new and positive development that may facilitate a political solution for the Syrian crisis are faced with new complications that occurred recently. On top of these developments are the Iranian and Hezbollah military losses. However, a new development that took place in Europe might be the hardest.

The United States switched on a missile shield in Romania on Thursday that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states. It is known that the opening of the long awaited missile defense system in Europe was one of the most important controversial issues between Russia and the US. 

The US has postponed this opening many times for different reasons among which the coordination with Russia in the negotiations with Iran about its nuclear program and the attempts to attract Moscow to make strategic understandings which Obama was seeking to hold with Putin who turned them down refusing the US claims that the missile defense system doesn’t pose any threat to Russia but it is rather a preventive procedure directed towards Iranian ballistic missiles. 

Undoubtedly, this development would double the difficulties before any attempts to find a political solution for the Syrian crisis since the understandings made between Russia and the US meet on far-range targets and are relevant to a political solution that determines the future of Assad, but they don’t exceed to establish a stable strategic coordination. Therefore, they sometimes work properly like what happened in the cessation of hostilities agreement and fail some other times like in the failure to stabilize the ceasefire agreement. 

These ups and downs are not due to the complications of the crisis or the growing numbers of players and spoilers, but to the Russian agenda which is focused on using the Syrian crisis more than finding a solution for it.

The advance towards a political solution is the real test for the US- Russian understandings which so far failed because Russia has not realized yet any US readiness to compromise. Russians haven’t moved a step away from their plan about the political solution in Syria (a national unity government in which opposition takes part under Assad). In return, the US couldn’t convince the Syrian opposition with the Russian plan or could even get any guarantees that Assad will not run for elections again once the transitional period is over. However, this discussion between the two superpowers about Assad’s destiny aroused Iran’s worries about any agreement that may not take its interests in account and that may explain to some degree why Iran decided to make its presence public through sending thousands of its troops to say that “Assad is a red line” for Iran and any US and Russian deal should take that into account.  

Abdulwahab Badrakhan in Al-Ittihad