Why Is Putin "Allowing" Israel to Bomb Syria?
The Saker • January 18, 2018 Informationclearinghouse recently posted an article by Darius Shahtahmasebi entitled “Israel Keeps Bombing Syria and Nobody Is Doing Anything About It”. Following this publication I received an email from a reader asking me the following question:
“Putin permitting Israel to bomb Syria – why? I am confused by Putins actions – does Putin support the Zionist entity, on the quiet like. I would appreciate your feedback on this matter. Also – I have heard, but not been able to confirm, that the Russian Jewish immigrants to Occupied Palestines are the most ardent tormenters of the Palestinians – it takes quite some doing to get ahead of the likes of Netanyahu. Please comment”.
While in his article Darius Shahtahmasebi wonders why the world is not doing anything to stop the Israelis (“Why haven’t Iran, Syria, and/or Hezbollah in Lebanon responded directly?“),
my reader is more specific and wonders why Putin (or Russia)
specifically is not only “permitting” Israel to bomb Syria but even
possibly “supporting” the Zionist Entity.
I often see that question in emails and in comments, so I wanted to address this issue today.
First, we need to look at some critical assumption implied by this question. These assumptions are:
- That Russia can do something to stop the Israelis
- That Russia should (or even is morally obliged) to do something.
Let
me begin by saying that I categorically disagree with both of these
assumptions, especially the 2nd one. Let’s take them one by one.
Assumption #1: Russia can stop the Israeli attacks on Syria
How?
I think that the list of options is fairly obvious here. Russian
options range from diplomatic action (such as private or public protests
and condemnations, attempts to get a UNSC Resolution passed) to direct
military action (shooting down Israeli aircraft, “painting” them with an
engagement radar to try to scare them away or, at least, try to
intercept Israeli missiles).
Trying
to reason with the Israelis or get the to listen to the UN has been
tried by many countries for decades and if there is one thing which is
beyond doubt is that the Israelis don’t give a damn about what anybody
has to say. So talking to them is just a waste of oxygen. What about
threatening them? Actually, I think that this could work, but at what
risk and price?
First
of all, while I always said that the IDF’s ground forces are pretty
bad, this is not the case of their air forces. In fact, their record is
pretty good. Now if you look at where the Russian air defenses are, you
will see that they are all concentrated around Khmeimim and Tartus. Yes,
an S-400 has a very long range, but that range is dependent on many
things including the size of the target, its radar-cross section, its
electronic warfare capabilities, the presence of specialized EW
aircraft, altitude, etc. The Israelis are skilled pilots who are very
risk averse so they are very careful about what they do. Finally, the
Israelis are very much aware of where the Russians are themselves and
where there missiles are. I think that it would be pretty safe to say
that the Israelis make sure to keep a minimal safe distance between
themselves and the Russians, if only to avoid any misunderstanding.
But
let’s say that the Russians did have a chance to shoot down an Israeli
aircraft – what would be the likely Israeli reaction to such a shooting?
In this article Darius Shahtahmasebi writes: “Is it because Israel
reportedly has well over 200 nukes all “pointed at Iran,” and there is
little Iran and its allies can do to take on such a threat?” I
don’t see the Israelis use nukes on Russian forces, however, that does
in no way mean that the Russians when dealing with Israel should not
consider the fact that Israel is a nuclear armed power ruled by racist
megalomaniacs. In practical terms this means this: “should Russia (or
any other country) risk a military clash with Israel over a few
destroyed trucks or a weapons and ammunition dump”? I think that the
obvious answer is clearly ‘no’.
While
this is the kind of calculations the US simply ignores (at least
officially – hence all the saber-rattling against the DPRK), Russia is
ruled by a sane and responsible man who cannot make it a habit of simply
waltzing into a conflict hence the Russian decision not to retaliate in
kind against the shooting down of the Russian SU-24 by the Turks. If
the Russians did not retaliate against the Turks shooting down one of
their own aircraft, they sure ain’t gonna attack the Israelis when they
attack a non-Russian target!
There
are also simply factual issues to consider: even if some Russian
air-defense systems are very advanced and could shoot down an X number
of Israeli aircraft, they are nowhere near numerous enough to prevent
the entire Israeli air force from saturating them. In fact, both Israel
and CENTCOM simply have such a numbers advantage over the relatively
small Russian contingent that they both could over-run the Russian
defenses, even if they would take losses in the process.
So
yes, the Russian probably could stop one or a few Israeli attacks, but
if the Israelis decided to engage in a sustained air campaign against
targets in Syria there is nothing the Russians could do short of going
to war with Israel. So here again a very basic strategic principle fully
applies: you never want to start an escalatory process you neither
control nor can win. Put simply this means: if the Russians shoot back –
they lose and the Israelis win. It’s really that simple and both sides
know it (armchair strategist apparently don’t).
And this begs a critical look at the second assumption:
Assumption #2: Russia has some moral duty to stop the Israeli attacks on Syria
This
is the one which most baffles me. Why in the world would anybody think
that Russia owes anybody anywhere on the planet any type of protection?!
For starters, when is the last time somebody came to the help of
Russia? I don’t recall anybody in the Middle-East offering their support
to Russia in Chechnia, Georgia or, for that matter, the Ukraine! How
many countries in the Middle-East have recognized South Ossetia or
Abkhazia (and compare that with the Kosovo case!)? Where was the Muslim
or Arab “help” or “friendship” towards Russia when sanctions were
imposed and the price of oil dropped? Remind me – how exactly did
Russia’s “friends” express their support for Russia over, say, the
Donbass or Crimea?
Can
somebody please explain to me why Russia has some moral obligation
towards Syria or Iran or Hezbollah when not a single Muslim or Arab
country has done anything to help the Syrian government fight against
the Takfiris? Where is the Arab League!? Where is the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation?!
Is it not a fact that Russia has done more in Syria than all the countries of the Arab League and the OIC combined?!
Where
do the Arab and Muslims of the Middle-East get this sense of
entitlement which tells them that a faraway country which struggles with
plenty of political, economic and military problems of its own has to
do more than the immediate neighbors of Syria do?!
Putin
is the President of Russia and he is first and foremost accountable to
the Russian people to whom he has to explain every Russian casualty and
even every risk he takes. It seems to me that he is absolutely right
when he acts first and foremost in defense of the people who elected him
and not anybody else.
By
the way – Putin was very clear about why he was ordering a (very
limited) Russian military intervention in Syria: to protect Russian
national interests by, for example, killing crazy Takfiris in Syria so
as not to have to fight then in the Caucasus and the rest of Russia. At
no time and in no way did any Russian official refer to any kind of
obligation of Russia towards Syria or any other country in the region.
True, Russia did stand by President Assad, but that was not because of
any obligation towards him or his country, but because the Russians
always insisted that he was the legitimate President of Syria and that
only the Syrian people had the right to replace (or keep) him. And, of
course, it is in the Russian national interest to show that, unlike the
US, Russia stands by her allies. But none of that means that Russia is
now responsible for the protection of the sovereignty of the Syrian
airspace or territory.
As
far as I am concerned, the only country which has done even more than
Russia for Syria is Iran and, in lieu of gratitude the Arab countries
“thank” the Iranians by conspiring against them with the US and Israel.
Hassan Nasrallah is absolutely spot on when the calls all these
countries traitors and collaborators of the AngloZionist Empire.
There
is something deeply immoral and hypocritical in this constant whining
that Russia should do more when in reality Russia and Iran are the only
two countries doing something meaningful (and Hezbollah, of course!).
Now let me address a few typical questions:
Question #1: but aren’t Syria, Iran and Hezbollah Russian allies?
Yes
and no. Objectively – yes. Formally – no. What this means is that while
these three entities do have some common objectives, they are also
independent and they all have some objectives not shared by others.
Furthermore, they have no mutual defense treaty and this is why neither
Syria, nor Iran nor Hezbollah retaliated against Turkey when the Turks
shot down the Russian SU-24. While some might disagree, I would argue
that this absence of a formal mutual defense treaty is a very good thing
if only because it prevents Russian or Iranian forces in Syria from
becoming “tripwire” forces which, if attacked, would require an
immediate response. In a highly dangerous and explosive situation like
the Middle-East the kind of flexibility provided by the absence any
formal alliances is a big advantage for all parties involved.
Question #2 : does that mean that Russia is doing nothing or even supporting Israel?
Of
course not! In fact, Netanyahu even traveled to Moscow to make all
sorts of threats and he returned home with nothing (Russian sources even
report that the Israelis ended up shouting at their Russian
counterparts). Let’s restate here something which ought to be obvious to
everybody: the Russian intervention in Syria was an absolute, total and
unmitigated disaster for Israel (I explain that in detail in this article).
If the Russians had any kind of concern for Israelis interests they
would never have intervened in Syria in the first place! However, that
refusal to let Israel dictate Russian policies in the Middle-East (or
elsewhere) does not at all mean that Russia can simply ignore the very
real power of the Israelis, not only because of their nukes, but also
because of their de-facto control of the US government.
Question #3: so what is really going on between Russia and Israel?
As I have explained elsewhere,
the relationship between Russia and Israel is a very complex and
multi-layered one and nothing between those two countries is really
black or white. For one thing, there is a powerful pro-Israel lobby in
Russia at which Putin has been chipping away over the years, but only in
very small and incremental steps. The key for Putin is to do what needs
to be done to advance Russian interests but without triggering an
internal or external political crisis. This is why the Russians are
doing certain things, but rather quietly.
First,
they are re-vamping the aging Syrian air defenses not only with
software updates, but also with newer hardware. They are also, of
course, training Syrian crews. This does not mean that the Syrians could
close their skies to Israeli aircraft, but that gradually the risks of
striking Syria would go up and up with each passing month. First, we
would not notice this, but I am confident that a careful analysis of the
types of targets the Israelis will strike will go down and further down
in value meaning the Syrians will become more and more capable of
defending their most important assets.
Second,
it is pretty obvious that Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are working
synergistically. For example, the Russians and the Syrians have
integrated their air defenses which means that now the Syrians can “see”
much further than their own radars would allow them to. Furthermore,
consider the number of US cruise missiles which never made it to the
Syrian air base Trump wanted to bomb: it is more or less admitted by now
that this was the result of Russian EW countermeasures.
Finally,
the Russians are clearly “covering” for Hezbollah and Iran politically
by refusing to consider them as pariahs which is what Israel and the US
have been demanding all along. This is why Iran is treated as a
key-player by the Russian sponsored peace process while the US and
Israel are not even invited.
So
the truth of the matter is simple: the Russians will not directly
oppose the Israelis, but what they will do is quietly strengthen Iran
and Hezbollah, which is not only much safer but also much more
effective.
Conclusion
We
live in a screwed-up and dysfunctional society which following decades
of US domination conflates war and aggression with strength, which
implicitly accepts the notion that a “great country” is one which goes
on some kind of violent rampage on a regular basis and which always
resorts to military force to retaliate against any attack. I submit that
the Russian and Iranian leaders are much more sophisticated then that.
The same goes for the Hezbollah leadership, by the way. Remember when
the Israelis (with the obvious complicity of some members of the Syrian
regime, by the way) murdered Imad Mughniyeh? Hezbollah promised to
retaliate, but so far, almost a decade later, they have not (or, at
least, not officially). Some will say that Hezbollah’s threats were
empty words – I totally disagree. When Hassan Nasrallah promises
something you can take it to the bank. But Hezbollah leaders are
sophisticated enough to retaliate when the time is right and on their
own terms. And think about the Iranians who since the Islamic Revolution
of 1979 have been in the crosshairs of both the US and Israel and who
never gave either one of them the pretext to strike.
When
you are much more powerful than your opponent you can be stupid and
reply on brute, dumb force. At least for the short to middle term.
Eventually, as we see with the US today, this kind of aggressive
stupidity backfires and ends up being counterproductive. But when you
are smaller, weaker or even just still in the process of recovering your
potential strength you have to act with much more caution and
sophistication. This is why all the opponents of the AngloZionist Empire
(including Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela) do
their utmost to avoid using force against the AngloZionists even when it
would be richly deserved. The one exception to this rule is Kim Jong-un
who has chosen a policy of hyperinflated threats which, while possibly
effective (he seems to have outwitted Trump, at least so far) is also
very dangerous and one which none of the Resistance countries want to
have any part in.
The
Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah are all “grown adults” (in political
terms), and Assad is learning very fast, and they all understand that
they are dealing with a “monkey with a hand grenade”
(this fully applies to both Israeli and US leaders) which combines a
nasty personality, a volatile temper, a primitive brain and a hand
grenade big enough to kill everybody in the room. Their task is to
incapacitate that monkey without having it pull the pin. In the case of
the Israeli strikes on Syria, the primary responsibility to respond in
some manner would fall either on the target of the strikes (usually
Hezbollah) or on the nation whose sovereignty was violated (Syria). And
both could, in theory, retaliate (by using tactical missiles for
example). Yet they chose not to, and that is the wise and correct
approach. As for the Russians, this is simply and plainly not their
business.
Addendum 1:
One
more thing. Make no mistake – the Israeli (and US!) propensity to use
force as a substitute for diplomacy is a sign of weakness, not of
strength. More accurately, their use of force, or the threat of force,
is the result of their diplomatic incompetence. While to the
unsophisticated mind the systematic use of force might appear as an
expression of power, history shows that brute force can be defeated when
challenged not directly, but by other means. This is, by necessity, a
slow process, much slower than a (mostly entirely theoretical) “quick
victory”, but an ineluctable one nonetheless. In purely theoretical
terms, the use of force can roughly have any one of the following
outcomes: defeat, stalemate, costly victory and a relatively painless
victory. That last one is exceedingly rare and the use of force mostly
results in one of the other outcomes. Sometimes the use of force is
truly the only solution, but I submit that the wise political leader
will only resort to it when all other options have failed and when vital
interests are at stake. In all other situation a “bad peace is
preferable to a good war”.
Addendum 2:
Contrary
to the hallucinations of the Neocons, Russia is absolutely not a
“resurgent USSR” and Putin has no desire whatsoever to rebuilt the
Soviet Union. Furthermore, there is no meaningful constituency in Russia
for any such “imperial” plans (well, there are always some lunatics
everywhere, but in Russia they are, thank God, a tiny powerless
minority). Furthermore, the new Russia is most definitely not an
“anti-US” in the sense of trying to counter every US imperial or
hegemonic move. This might be obvious to many, but I get so many
questions about why Russia is not doing more to counter the US in
Africa, Latin America or Asia that I feel that it is, alas, still
important to remind everybody of a basic principle of international law
and common sense: problems in country X are for country X to deal with.
Russia has no more business than the US in “solving” country X’s
problems.
Furthermore,
country X’s problems are usually best dealt with by country X’s
immediate neighbors, not by megalomaniac messianic superpowers who feel
that they ought to “power project” because they are somehow
“indispensable” or because “manifest destiny” has placed upon them the
“responsibility” to “lead” the world. All this terminology is just the
expression of a pathological and delusional imperial mindset which has
cost Russia and the Soviet Union an absolutely horrendous price in
money, energy, resources and blood (for example, the Soviet intervention
in Afghanistan was justified in terms of the “internationalist duty” of
the Soviet Union and people to help a “brotherly nation”).
While
this kind of nonsense is still 100% mainstream in the poor old US, it
is absolutely rejected in modern Russia. For all the personal
credibility of Putin with the Russian people, even he could not get away
with trying to militarily intervene, nevemind police the whole planet,
unless truly vital Russian interests were threatened (Crimea was such a
very rare case). Some will deplore this, I personally very much welcome
it, but the truth is that “the Russians are *not* coming”.
No comments:
Post a Comment