US President Barack Obama has warned that Russia’s decision to send military staff and equipment to Syria reflected a strategy that was “doomed to fail”.”The strategy that they are pursuing right now, doubling down on (Bashar al) Assad, I think is a big mistake,” he said on Friday, warning Moscow was “going to have to start getting a little smarter”. Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Kremlin would continue to supply weapons to the Syrian government, following warnings from US and NATO over Moscow’s increasing involvement in the Syrian conflict. Lavrov told a news conference that Russia was conducting military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea, that it had been for some time, and that the exercises were in line with international law. The minister also called on other world powers to help arm the Syrian military, which he described as the most efficient force against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group. The US Secretary of State John Kerry proclaims that such Russian involvement is dangerous and will only prolong the bloody conflict. Such is the US’s paranoia about the Russia-Syria alliance that it is urging neighbouring European countries to deny Russian aircraft their airspace if they are headed to Syria. Russia has decried this “international boorishness” and bemusedly reminds the western powers that it has been supplying arms, technical assistance and aid to Syria for more than four decades and has done nothing out of routine. Given the major role of the US and its allies in turning the Syrian civil war into a macabre theatre of innumerable factions fighting proxy wars for their international backers, the objections of the US administration to Russia’s involvement with the Assad regime are distinctly hypocritical. The shambles of Syria is a testament to the repeated failures of the western powers to learn from their mistakes and their interventionist foreign policies. The western powers in their bid to get rid of Bashar al-Assad financed all manner of rebel groups, with wildly different agendas and ethos. However, the Syrian regime was able to relatively withstand the myriad rebel forces. In the ensuing chaos of proxy wars, more than 300,000 people have died, a crippling refugee crisis has grown, and the most brutal Islamist terrorist group, Islamic State (IS), has been provided a breeding ground. The situation in 2015 is very different from the heady days of the Arab Spring when the Syrian conflict was being treated as part of a progressive, democratic regional movement. The need of the hour is to realize that IS is a bigger enemy and a genuine global threat and have a coordinated effort to ensure not only does it not gain more territorial foothold in Syria and Iraq but is altogether defeated. However, the obsession of the US to not let Russia or Iran, Syria’s other major international partner, become part of the solution or to involve Bashar al-Assad in the process of negotiating peace is proof that it has no clue on how to resolve the region’s crisis. If the US considers its involvement legitimate, it has no grounds to reject Russia’s. In fact, not involving Moscow is disastrous and counterproductive given the influence it has over Assad, as proved by Russia persuading Syria to dismantle its chemical weapons in 2013. The US cannot be allowed to unilaterally shape an entire country’s destiny.
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