The Kremlin has finally taken its head out of the Syrian sand. It has admitted for the first time that there is a real possibility that its longtime ally, the Assad family, is likely to be driven from power by the rebels.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov noted dourly yesterday that the regime was losing more and more control and territory to the Free Syrian Army, and that “facts had to be faced.” He said that plans were being completed to evacuate several thousand Russians who have been working in Syria. He said nothing about the future of the Kremlin’s naval base at Tartus.
Indeed, it seems probable that the facility, Russia’s only military port on the Mediterranean, will be used as a gathering and evacuation point for Russian citizens, assuming that they can reach it. If they are trapped by rebel action, it may be that helicopters will be sent from the Tartus base to pick them up. Thereafter, they will be sailed back to Russia.
It is not yet entirely clear if Bogdanov was speaking with the knowledge of the Putin administration or had let government thinking slip by mistake or was stating his own opinion. Whichever, the Russians’ encounter with reality is long overdue. The question is, what, apart from preparing to evacuate its own people from the country, is Russia going to do next ?
If Moscow is finally persuaded that the opposition forces stand on the brink of victory, will it see any point in perpetuating the violence? At the very least, will the Russians give up the supply of arms and ammunition, which has been playing such an important role in keeping the Assad regime on its feet and fighting? There is no question that they will ever be paid for what they have supplied in recent months. As with Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, the Kremlin has been guilty of serious political miscalculation and backed the wrong horse.
Bogdanov sought to soften the bitter confession that Bashar Assad was losing, by repeating yet again Russian calls for talks, warning that unless they took place, tens of thousands more lives could be lost before the conflict came to an end. However, the deputy Foreign Ministry did not signal any change in the Russian and Chinese support for those talks, which is that they should begin without preconditions, and thus without Bashar Assad first standing down from the presidency. Thoughtful though those words may perhaps still sound to the Kremlin, they were empty when they were first voiced at the start of the uprising, and they have become progressively meaningless as the conflict has spread.
The rebels may still be struggling to put together their own coherent political leadership. But on the ground, in the front line, they have been fighting Assad’s forces to a standstill. Bogdanov may be right when he predicts a long drawn-out conflict of attrition, in which many more lives will be lost. However, it is equally possible that the impetus that has been building behind the Free Syria Army, may continue to grow. In this case, a few more military successes, capturing key bases and installations, could see resistance suddenly crumble. What is left of Assad’s once mighty and feared military machine will surrender or quickly melt away.
Among the signs that the regime’s generals are running out of ideas and men, was the launch yesterday of a number of Scud missiles. These inaccurate rockets, dating in design from the 1970s, were fired from Damascus toward some unidentified target north of the capital. It is unlikely that they did much damage. Yet the fact that these obsolete weapons are now being deployed, seems to suggest that the regime is reaching a new level of desperation.
However, if Bogdanov is right that the fighting will be drawn out, how can the Putin administration find any good reason to carry on supporting Assad, both politically and militarily? If the Kremlin wishes to redeem itself to some slight extent, (in the short-term at least) in the eyes of most Syrians and of the rest of the Arab world, then now is the time for Vladimir Putin to make a call to his old friend Assad.
That telephone conversation should be blunt and to the point. Assad should be told he has lost and must go. Putin should offer Assad and his family a helicopter ride to Tartus and a voyage to asylum and political oblivion inside Russia. Then peace can come and Syria can start to rebuild, to rebuild a country for all Syrians of every ethnic background.
Editorial: Moscow finally faces facts
