Russia’s Syria game

A few weeks ago, a senior Russian official assured me that his government wouldn’t block “a strong resolution” in support of the uprising in Syria. Yet Russia this month vetoed a fairly mild UN Security Council resolution.

But then Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov invited the Syrian opposition to Moscow, implying that President Bashar al-Assad was no longer an exclusive interlocutor. And just 48 hours after the veto, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Assad to either reform or step aside.

Why is Russia behaving like an erratic banana republic rather than a mature power dealing with a threat to regional peace?

Start with the back story. Just 15 years after it was put on the map as an independent country, Syria chose the Soviet Union — Russia — as its principal protector. Over the years, that dependence developed into the backbone of Syrian national strategy. Even in the 1970s, when then-President Hafez al-Assad served US interests by crushing the left both within Syria and in Lebanon and making sure that Israel was no longer threatened, Damascus maintained close ties with Moscow.

With the end of the Cold War, Russia lost interest in Syria and other Arab military regimes. But events may be resurrecting some of that interest.

Vladimir Putin’s return as president signals Russia’s return to a more aggressive anti-West posture, scraping off the veneer of diplomatic politesse provided by Medvedev. Putin thinks that America is in decline and that Russia can make a comeback as a “superpower,” at least in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

And in the Middle East, Russia has no friend except Syria. Iranian mullahs may be tactical allies when it comes to thumbing noses at America, but they won’t play second fiddle to Putin — they fancy their own regime as the Middle East’s “superpower.”

Putin knows that Assad is doomed. But he wants to ensure that Russia has a say in choosing his successor. The emergence of a string of pro-West regimes from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean could shut Russia out of what Putin regards as part of its rightful zone of influence.

Another factor: The Russian lease on the Crimean port of Sevastopol runs out in 2017 and can’t be extended without Ukraine’s accord. Sevastopol is Russia’s largest naval base and its lifeline to maintaining a blue-water navy via the Black Sea, the Dardanelles and the Mediterranean. Losing the base would leave Russia a virtually landlocked country. Its enclave of Kaliningrad can never be developed into a major naval asset, while the Siberian coast in the far east is hard to resupply.

By 2017, Ukraine may well be a member of both the European Union and NATO — and it would be odd indeed for a NATO member to host Russia’s biggest military bases.

So Moscow has been seeking an alternative to Sevastapol for the last decade. Russian strategists believe they’ve found it on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

In 2002, Moscow and Damascus held preliminary talks on the subject. Initially, the idea was to transform the Syrian port of Tartus into an all-purpose aerial/naval base for both nations’ use. But European investment in the years since has turned Tartus into Syria’s major commercial port, ahead of Latakia. Then, too, the area’s population is largely “mainline” Muslims, who might resent the decision by a minority Alawite regime to offer bases to foreign powers.

There is also the Iran factor. As the chief supporter of the Assad regime, the Islamic Republic demands facilities for its own navy. In February, an Iranian flotilla visited Syria for the first time ever, amid reports that “mooring facilities” would be built to host a permanent presence.

Russia knows enough about the region to know that the Assad regime won’t stand much longer. This is why Putin is looking for a “median” solution: a new Syrian regime in which Moscow’s friends, meaning elements of the Assad regime, would have a place strong enough to offer the Russian navy an outlet when, and if, Ukraine throws it out.