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What’s a charming colonel president rogue bad good boy to do?

I’m reading Jonathan Marcus’s “Syria presents tough choices for Obama” from last week and wonder where is the companion piece: “Syria presents tough choices for Putin”?

Putin, of course, may have by way of aspects of the “malignant narcissist” just the personality fit to ignoring the suffering caused by even more malignant forces at work in Syria: the despot who won’t go; his brother who won’t go either and makes the worst of the Qaddafi family look like one of the Waltons; an opposition force peppered with Islamist leanings, the Saudi version of Islamic wisdom, and, alas Al Qaeda types.

Neither the Russia of the Czars, of the Soviet, nor of the emerging oligarchs should want to have its hands dipped in any o’ that!

Still, were Putin given leave to “fix Syria” by doing other than returning it to its former dismal state, what would he do?

What should he do?

I’m not sure I understand the post-Soviet continuation of the ghosts of the Cold War in the present atmosphere — e.g., “One of the decrees Putin issued in 2012 called on the government to seek closer ties to the United States. Ties have worsened significantly instead, with Russia expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development, cracking down on other U.S.-funded activities and each nation passing tit-for-tat punitive laws” (see “Gearan” in reference) — and it would seem Putin doesn’t “get it” either.

🙂

  1. Treat Maher al-Assad as a separate issue from the family’s general rule;
  2. Shepherd into power Russo-Syrian business partners representative of Syria’s demographics and channel the class toward an elections-based political process;
  3. Marginalize the Shiite Islamist connection with Iran and Hezbollah;
  4. Impede Saudi-backed Sunni Islamism in its zeal to control the levers of the state as Saudi outpost.

Point One: Apolitical Syrians victimized by the behavior of Maher al-Assad’s forces will never forgive him, and in that regard he stands as a lasting impediment to internal peace for as long as he retains his authority.

Point Two: A Syria regarded and treated as a Russian client state and buffer needs a texture suited to contemporary Russian cultural drifts and standards, and neither true despotism nor Islamism will suit that.  To Putin’s credit, rather after-the-fact, his distributions of wealth have been both nepotist in some ways and socially responsible in other ways.  Russia may not work very well, but it works.

Points Three and Four: Chechnya’s Islamist rebels haven’t worked out for Mother Russia; similar forces, Shiite or Sunni, won’t work any better in Syria.  On this point, Putin may be laughing, for he knows Obama can’t defend the arming of Mujaheddin against an “Evil Empire” that ceased to exist 20 years ago.

Whatever else Syria may be, it ain’t Charlie Wilson’s war.

So far, however, it doesn’t seem much like Vladimir Putin’s war either.

Reference

BBC.  “Kerry in Moscow to bridge gap with Russia on Syria.”  May 7, 2013.

Corboy, Denis, William Courtney and Kenneth Yalowitz.  “Rising Tensions With Russia.” Op-ed, The New York Times, April 18, 2013.

Gearan, Anne.  “Kerry appeals to Russian for help on Syria, but little sign Putin will agree.”  The Washington Post, May 7, 2013.

Marcus, Jonathan.  “Syria presents tough choices for Obama.”  BBC, May 2, 2013.

Mohammed, Arshad and Alexei Anishchuk.  “John Kerry seeks Vladimir Putin’s help in finding solution to Syria conflict.”  The Independent, May 7, 2013.