According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, high-ranking American officials are considering a policy of trying to drive a wedge between Russia and Bashar al-Assad, hoping that they can then, with the cooperation of Vladimir Putin, impose a peace on Syria somewhat favorable to U.S. interests. Max Boot is skeptical:
Given that Assad himself is a longtime ally of Russia and provides it with military bases in the Middle East, and that [Assad’s closest ally], Iran, is a big and growing customer of the Russian arms industry, it is hard to know what would induce Putin to do a volte-face. Certainly Barack Obama was never able to bribe Putin into supporting the American agenda, even by delaying a planned missile-defense system for Eastern Europe.
Perhaps Trump will up the ante by offering to lift all sanctions and de-facto abandon Ukraine (and possibly other Eastern European states?) to Putin’s tender mercies. Nothing is impossible, but even if that were not immoral it would still be impractical. There is scant point in bribing Russia to abandon Syria now that its intervention has already decisively tilted the battlefield in Assad’s favor. Even if Russia pulled back now, Assad would remain in a position to stay in power and continue his reign of mass murder. Iran, for its part, is getting wealthy from selling oil, and if Russia doesn’t sell it arms, China will. The Iranian threat will hardly disappear no matter what Russia does.
The administration has also talked of creating “safe zones” in Syria so that refugees can come home. . . . But Obama previously tried to implement a version of this scheme in northern Syria and it accomplished nothing for the simple reason that there were no troops on the ground that could actually protect the safe zone. . . . Is the U.S. going to commit its own ground troops for what is essentially a humanitarian intervention devoid of any obvious “exit strategy”?
Given President Trump’s “America First” philosophy, that sounds doubtful. Instead, Trump appears bent on making common cause with Russia to fight Islamic State—the very excuse that Russia already uses to justify its terror bombing of [Syrian] civilians.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/separating-putin-and-assad-wont-work/