Leaving Syria ship before it sinks?
updated 3:33 PM EST, Tue January 22, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Russia has sent two planes so that about 100 of its citizens who want to can leave Syria
- The Russian government has denied that this is an evacuation
- These actions are not the first indication that Moscow expects the Assad regime may fall, says Katz
Editor's note: Mark N.
Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason
University (Fairfax, Virginia, USA), and is the author of Leaving without Losing: The War on Terror after Iraq and Afghanistan (Johns Hopkins University Press).
(CNN) -- As numerous news organizations have
reported, Russia has sent two planes so that about 100 of its citizens
who want to can leave Syria. Tellingly, the planes were not sent to
Damascus where the security situation around the airport has reportedly
deteriorated, but to Beirut instead to which the Russians departing
Syria traveled by bus.
In its characteristic
fashion, the Russian government has denied that this is an evacuation.
An unnamed Russian diplomat in Damascus, though, did not rule out the
possibility of further flights. Russian naval exercises in the
Mediterranean may also be the prelude to a seaborne evacuation from the
Syrian coast.
These actions are not the
first indication that Moscow expects the Assad regime may fall. Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov acknowledged this possibility
in December, and President Vladimir Putin himself seemed to distance
himself from President Bashar al-Assad a week later. Arranging for the
emergency departure of Russian citizens from Syria though, is the most
serious indication to date that the Kremlin is preparing for the further
weakening or even the downfall of the Assad regime.
These Russian moves, of
course, are not ones that the Assad regime can be pleased with. The top
leaders as well as officers in its security services, though, may have a
strong incentive to protect the Russian exodus in order to secure their
own prospects for fleeing to Russia in the event that the regime falls.
After opposing Western calls for al-Assad to leave Syria for so
long, Moscow is not going to publicly urge him to do so before it is too
late.
Mark N. Katz
Mark N. Katz
After opposing Western
calls for al-Assad to leave Syria for so long, Moscow is not going to
publicly urge him to do so before it is too late. The very fact that
Moscow has begun to organize the departure of its own citizens from
Syria though, is a signal that al-Assad still has a window of
opportunity to depart.
Moscow has not yet
withdrawn its personnel from the Russian embassy in Damascus. If and
when it does, this will signal that the Kremlin has determined that the
regime really is about to fall. The departure of Russian embassy
personnel may also be the last opportunity for al-Assad and his family
to leave Damascus with Moscow's assistance.
The downfall of the Assad
regime will present challenges both for neighboring countries and for
all the major powers. Because of its ties to the Assad regime the
challenges that Moscow faces in Syria after its downfall will be
especially difficult.
Moscow will want to keep
its naval facilities at the Syrian port of Tartus as well as its
economic and trade relations with Syria. Yet while the West may be
willing to accommodate Moscow here, it is not clear that a new Syrian
government that is resentful over Moscow's past support for Assad will
be.
If the Alawite minority
that the Assad regime is based on manages to flee to its heartland on
the Syrian coast and establish a mini-state there, Moscow will face some
especially difficult choices. That rump regime will be eager to allow
Moscow to keep its naval facility at Tartus and continue receiving
Russian arms.
Mark N. Katz
If Moscow agrees to do
this, however, it will not only have hostile relations with the new
Sunni-dominated regime in Damascus that is likely to arise, but also
with Sunni-led governments throughout the Arab world.
The new Sunni-dominated
government (or just various Sunni forces) may decide to retaliate
through attacking Russian personnel in the intra-Syrian conflict that is
likely to continue, and perhaps through assisting Sunni Muslim rebels
in the North Caucasus and Russia's other Muslim regions. Yet if Moscow
does not back it, this rump Alawite regime may not last long and the new
Sunni-dominated Syrian government might expel the Russians anyway.
Moscow did not have to
back the Assad regime as much as it has. But because it did, Russian
interests in Syria are especially likely to suffer as it continues to
crumble. Most unfortunately, it is the Russian citizens now desperately
trying to escape from Syria who may suffer most from the consequences of
Moscow's poor choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment