| New York Times | - |
WASHINGTON
- Russia's military buildup in Syria will probably prolong the life of
the beleaguered government of President Bashar al-Assad, Pentagon
officials and foreign policy experts say, but is unlikely to be a major
factor in the campaign to ...
WASHINGTON — Russia’s military buildup in Syria will probably prolong the life of the beleaguered government of President Bashar al-Assad,
Pentagon officials and foreign policy experts say, but is unlikely to
be a major factor in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State, and could
further inflame — and lengthen — the conflict.
The
arrival of four multipurpose warplanes at an airfield near Latakia,
Syria, on Monday brought the number of tactical jets that Moscow has
deployed to Syria this month to 32. They further enhanced Russia’s
ability to carry out airstrikes that experts say can give Syrian
government forces a badly needed boost on the battlefield.
Reconnaissance flights by Russian drones in the last week have all been
over areas controlled by opponents of Mr. Assad — some backed by the
United States and its allies — while avoiding territory controlled by
the Islamic State.
If
Russia takes the next step of sharing the intelligence with the Syrian
government or carrying out airstrikes against those groups, it could
easily lead to an escalation in the conflict, frustrating
already-dwindling hopes for a diplomatic resolution and prompting Arab
governments to increase aid to Syrian rebels.
The Syria Problem at the United Nations
At the 70th annual session of the
United Nations General Assembly, world leaders addressed the war in
Syria, which has contributed to the rise to ISIS and a global migrant
crisis.
By YOUSUR AL-HLOU on Publish Date September 28, 2015.
Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
Adel
al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said Tuesday that there
were no circumstances in which his country would accept the Russian
effort to keep Mr. Assad in power.
He
hinted that if a political solution that led to his departure could not
be found, the shipment of weapons and other support to Syrian rebel
groups would be increased.
“Whatever
we may or may not do we are not talking about,” Mr. Jubeir said. “There
is a moderate Syrian opposition that is fighting against Bashar
al-Assad, and this opposition is getting support from a number of
countries, and we expect that this support will continue and be
intensified.”
Defense
Secretary Ashton B. Carter warned last week that Moscow’s military
buildup could amount to “pouring gasoline on a fire.” But as American
officials see it, the buildup enables Russia to simultaneously pursue
several longstanding goals.
They
see Russia as trying to avert the collapse of the Assad government for
as long as it can while it establishes its most important foothold in
the Middle East in decades. That military presence in Syria could remain
in place even if Mr. Assad is eventually supplanted by a new
government, because Russia would be a part of any transition talks. And
if Russia, in the middle of all of this maneuvering, can also damage the
Islamic State, then so much the better for Moscow.
In his Monday address at the United Nations, Vladimir V. Putin,
the Russian president, alluded to reports that thousands of volunteers
had left Russia to join the Islamic State. “We cannot allow these
criminals who have already felt the smell of blood to return home and
continue their evil doings,” Mr. Putin said.
Peter
Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said Mr. Carter directed his staff
on Tuesday to “open lines of communication with Russia on deconflicting”
the military missions of the two countries in Syria, to ensure that
American operations are not “disrupted” by Russia’s military moves in
Syria.
But American policy makers say confronting the Islamic State is not necessarily Moscow’s priority.
While
Russia’s deployment of its most advanced ground-attack planes and
fighter jets does give it the ability to make airstrikes against the
Sunni militancy in Syria, the very first warplanes that Russia sent to
Latakia were four SU-30 Flanker air-to-air fighters. Such aircraft,
officials said, would be useful in expanding Russia’s military reach in
the Middle East and perhaps in dissuading foes of Mr. Assad from even
contemplating the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria. But they
have little utility against a ground force like the Islamic State, also
known as ISIS or ISIL.
“ISIL
doesn’t own so much as a crop duster,” said an American official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak on the record.
Russia has also sent advanced air defenses, including two SA-22 surface-to-air, antiaircraft systems.
Speaking
at the German Marshall Fund of the United States on Monday, Gen. Philip
M. Breedlove, the supreme allied commander for Europe, gave a long list
of what he believed to be Russia’s aims in Syria.
Graphic: How Syrians Are Dying
“First
of all, I think that Russia very much wants to be seen as an equal on
the world stage,” he said. Next, Moscow “wants to take the world’s eyes
away from what they’re doing in Ukraine.”
Its
other goals include maintaining “warm-water ports and airfield
capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean” and prolonging the Assad
government.
“And then, after all that,” he said, “they will do some counter-ISIL work in order to legitimize their approach in Syria.”
Given
the fractured nature of the opposition, some analysts said, the Russian
intervention can provide a badly needed boost to the Assad government.
“I
think the Russian military strategy is to build up a force in Syria
that can intervene in selective battlefields and change the military
equation on those battlefields,” said Jeffrey White, a former Mideast
analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“In
my view, it can produce a decisive edge where they apply it,” he said.
“It will help prevent big gains by rebels forces on the ground, and it
will allow the government to recover some areas that have been lost.”
Frederic
C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who was an adviser on
Syria to Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was secretary of state, said
Russian air power might be useful in blunting an Islamic State lunge
toward Damascus from Palmyra. Such a move would address a situation that
has begun to worry some American officials: a potential Islamic State
threat to Syria’s capital, which would be awkward for America to try to
thwart because it would put the military in the position of defending
the Assad government.
Other
experts, however, said that while the Russian military was likely to
help Mr. Assad in the short term, the longer-term challenges for the
Russian military remained formidable.
“The
government only controls 20 percent of its territory, has a huge
manpower shortage and has stoked a sectarian war with a majority Sunni
population,” said Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy. “Those are hard odds to overcome. The
Russians can use their deployments to prop up the government for now.
But over the long term, it will suck Russia into the quagmire. Solving
Syria is going to take more than a Russian military intervention.”
In
recent weeks, the Russians have erected prefabricated housing for
several thousand military personnel and deployed T-90 tanks, howitzers
and armored personnel carriers. The primary mission of these forces,
experts say, is to protect the airfield and not to engage in ground
combat.
But
Russia has also deployed an offensive air capability, which includes
more than two dozen SU-25 Frogfoot planes, SU-24 fighters and SU-30
Flanker aircraft as well as attack and transport helicopters. Many of
those craft stand ready and armed on the runway. “They’re ready to go
and appear to be just awaiting their orders,” said a second United
States official, who declined to be identified because he was discussing
intelligence reports.
Their
possible use has American officials on edge. “We’ll watch the kinds of
targets that they strike, and you know, whether it’s ISIL, A.N.F. or if
they’re striking moderate Syrian opposition groups that are
anti-government,” Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the United States
Central Command, told reporters on Friday, also referring to the Nusra
Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
“The
moderate Syrian opposition that we are supporting have been key to
pushing ISIL back,” Colonel Ryder said. “If the Russians were to take
action against those groups, instead of striking ISIL, for example,
that’s something that we would definitely look upon with great concern.”
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