سوريا وروسيا: الانسحاب الذي لم يكن

The withdrawal that wasn’t
May 14th 2016 | LATAKIA, MOSCOW AND PALMYRA |
VLADIMIR PUTIN stares out from a poster hanging at Russian army installations throughout Syria. “Russia’s armed forces are the guarantor of world security,” the posters declare. It is a good summary of the thinking behind Russia’s mission, which has never been mainly about Syria. When it intervened in Syria last year, Russia sought to provide TV spectacles for the masses at home, re-establish itself as a global power and force the West into taking account of Russian interests.
So when Mr Putin said in March that “the main part” of Russia’s forces could now leave Syria, their mission having been accomplished, he was partly telling the truth. Russia today hardly looks like the mere “regional power” that Barack Obama once dubbed it. Any path to peace in Syria now runs through Moscow. “Only Russia and the United States of America are in a state to stop the war in Syria, even though they have different political interests and goals,” wrote Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff, in a recent article.
The curious thing about Russia’s withdrawal, however, is that it has not actually happened. To leave would be to abandon Russian influence and hand Syria over to Mr Assad’s other ally, Iran. Rather than withdrawing his forces, Mr Putin has retrenched. The March announcement was really “a way to reconceptualise the presence as permanent, rather than as part of a specific mission,” says Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert on the Russian armed forces. Russia did recall a handful of aircraft—a signal to Syria’s stubborn president, Bashar al-Assad, not to take it for granted. But its footprint in Syria remains heavy.
The Khmeimim airbase near the Syrian port of Latakia hums with fighters and bombers taking off. New attack helicopters have arrived for close air support. Powerful S-400 anti-aircraft missiles maintain an air-defence perimeter in the eastern Mediterranean that constrains even NATO. Just as America’s bases in Iraq had KFC franchises, Russia has tried to make the desert home: Slavic women serve kasha (porridge) in the mess tent; a container unit holds a library of 2,000 Russian books.
On the ground, Russia seems to be running the show. When Russian and Syrian forces carry out joint missions, they operate “on Russian terms”, says Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, a think-tank. A Russian defence-ministry convoy that took journalists on a recent press tour rolled nonchalantly past dozens of checkpoints. Throughout the tour, Syrian officers deferred to the Russians.
A glance at the Syrian forces explains the deference. The Russians are well-equipped and disciplined; the Syrians are dishevelled. During rehearsals for a Victory Day parade at the Russian airbase, a small Syrian unit struggled to keep step, arms and legs swinging out of sync. Mr Assad has supplemented his forces with fighters from the Lebanese militia Hizbullah, foreign paramilitaries and thugs. At Syrian checkpoints, irregulars in mismatched uniforms and shabby sneakers keep watch.
The bombing campaign has been massive, but Russia has also done much else. Palmyra, recently recaptured from Islamic State (IS), now hosts a small Russian base, ostensibly for sappers clearing the area of mines. Russian special forces are involved in intelligence and targeting. Instructors train Syrian counterparts. Russian officers have waded into local politics, brokering ceasefires. The Russians are here for the long haul: when the defence ministry ordered medals for the Syrian campaign, it asked for over 10,000.
Mr Putin has framed his intervention in Syria as a battle between good and evil. In fact, Syrian and Russian forces have as often targeted moderate rebels as extremists. Mr Assad’s plan has always been to convince the world he is fighting jihadists rather than his own angry citizens. And indeed, he has helped stoke the rise of IS and, by killing moderates, he has driven some of his people into the welcoming arms of the extremists.
On May 5th Russia brought its world-renowned Mariinsky Theatre orchestra to give a concert in Palmyra’s Roman amphitheatre, on the stage where IS executed dozens of people last year. The orchestra delivered a sublime performance of Bach, Shchedrin and Prokofiev, even as bombs were falling on Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Many Syrians were disgusted.
It was no accident that the concert took place just before Victory Day, the Russian holiday marking the end of the second world war. Mr Putin called the Russian soldiers in Syria “worthy successors of the great patriotic war heroes”. The concert was dedicated in part to Alexander Prokhorenko, a special-forces soldier who, Russian television reported, had called in air strikes against his own position when surrounded by IS during the battle for Palmyra. Even liberal commentators normally critical of Mr Putin gushed.
In Syria and in Western capitals, this charm offensive is less effective. Even some supporters of Mr Assad are wary of Russia’s growing control over their country. The West sees Russia’s talk of fighting terrorism as a smokescreen for supporting Mr Assad’s autocratic regime. Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, called the concert “tasteless”. Few believe Russia’s claim that it is working towards a fair political solution in Syria. But Russia is not concerned with winning over the West. Instead, by proving itself indispensable, Russia believes it can compel the West to collaborate on Russian terms. Or as MrTrenin says, to “love us as we are”—bombs, cellists and all.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21698688-syria-still-provides-useful-stage-russian-strategyand-propaganda-withdrawal-wasnt