Russia announced on Monday that it is withdrawing its forces from Syria. Whether or not it actually does so, Michael Weiss argues, Vladimir Putin most likely believes he has accomplished his major military aim—ensuring that Bashar al-Assad remains in power—and may be ready to reduce, if not end, military operations in the country:
[Putin] may well be winding down a short intervention because he’s accomplished exactly what he set out to do, and the next move is sending his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to do what he does best: run circles around John Kerry in Switzerland. . . .
Russia isn’t skedaddling from the Levant [completely]; it will, [according to an official press release], “maintain an aviation support center in Syria in order to monitor compliance with the ceasefire,” and of course retain its longstanding and reportedly refurbished naval resupply base at Tartus. Translation: it can still bomb as needed or desired. . . .
The war has . . . caused substantial damage, but not to terrorists. Civilians have borne the brunt of the devastation; 600 of them were killed and 120,000 of them scattered internally or externally . . . during a [single] late-October offensive designed to shore up the Assad regime’s weakening frontline positions and regain lost ground. . . .
Also pulverized during the last half-year have been the barracks, weapons depots, and soldiers of the Free Syrian Army, including 31 factions that have been fitfully armed and supported by the CIA. . . . The same cannot be said for Islamic State, the putative enemy of Moscow. It’s been struck only between 10 to 20 percent of the time, say U.S. officials. . . .
Fortifying Assad on the battlefield was always meant to keep him physically alive and politically immovable, making his ouster—long a nominal Western precondition for peace talks—a diplomatic non-starter. Well, no one now disputes that that objective has been achieved spectacularly.
More about: Bashar al-Assad, ISIS, Politics & Current Affairs, Syrian civil war, U.S. Foreign policy, Vladimir Putin