THE KREMLIN’S ACTIONS IN SYRIA
SUMMARY OF CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS On December 18, 2015, the Atlantic Council hosted a conference titled, “The Kremlin’s Actions in Syria: Origins, Timing, and Prospects.” Participants included experts on Russia and the Middle East, former government officials, and journalists. The first of two panels focused on the evolution of Russia’s policy on Syria and included commentary from Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Resident Senior Fellow at the Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East; Vladislav Inozemtsev, Professor of Economics at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow; Angela Stent, Professor and Director at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European Studies; Mark Katz, Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University; and Ambassador Nabil Fahmy, former Egyptian Foreign Minister and Founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. Moderating was Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, Vice President and Director of the Rafik Hariri Center. Panel two shifted the discussion to the impact of and prospects for Moscow’s new policy, and how the West should respond. It included Ambassador Dennis Ross, Counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Adam Garfinkle, Founding Editor of the American Interest magazine; Mowaffak al-Rubaie, former National Security Adviser of Iraq and former Member of Parliament, Council of Representatives of Iraq; Pavel Felgenhauer, independent Moscow-based Military Analyst and Journalist, Novaya Gazeta; and Ambassador Richard Burt, Managing Director of McLarty Associates and Board Director and Executive Committee Member of the Atlantic Council. The second panel was moderated by Ambassador John E. Herbst, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. The following is an analytical summary of the conference proceedings.
PANEL ONE Why did Russia intervene in Syria? According to Vladimir Putin, the aim was to fight terrorism and to defend Syria’s sovereignty. But there are other regimes whose grip on power—the Kremlin’s idea of sovereignty—is tenuous and whose countries are
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plagued by terrorists, as Vladimir Inozemtsev points out in an essay in this volume. So why Syria? This is not an academic question, for its answer will tell us key things about the chances for a new, democratic Syria to be born—if it survives at all—and about the chances for forming a truly broad coalition that includes Sunni Arab states, the United States and European powers, and Russia to fight ISIS. Russia’s intervention and its commitment to Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, serve multiple purposes, according to most panelists. Primarily, Russia’s actions in Syria allow Putin “to confound the United States’ policies of intervention, which he opposed for many years,” going back to Yugoslavia, Inozemtsev argued. Second, the Syria operation is part of Russia’s drive to become a global power, which has been frustrated by its conflict with the West over Ukraine and other parts of Eastern and Central Europe, according to Inozemtsev. That argument was echoed by most panelists. Putin has “really forced the United States to deal with him, really since this began, after the United States and its allies for twenty-eight months have tried to isolate Russia because of what’s happened in Ukraine,” Stent told the panel. “And I think he’s been quite successful in that, because right now he’s the sort of go-to man if you want to get something done on Syria, as we saw with Secretary Kerry’s visit to Moscow a few days ago.” Pointing to recent trips to Moscow by several Middle Eastern leaders—and a proposed $10 billion Saudi investment in Russia—Stent said the Syria operation is part of “a broader strategy of Russia to recoup its influence in the Middle East.” Beyond intervening in the war, specifically supporting Assad gives the Kremlin a shot at a major diplomatic coup, according to Hof: “For Russia, Assad’s continued incumbency proclaims Moscow’s return to great-power status,” he said. “Putin claims that Washington has been on a democratization and regime-change jihad since 2003 in Iraq. He wants to stop it cold in Syria.” The Russian President aims to do that, Hof said, by eliminating the non-ISIS opposition to Assad in order 3