Hezbollah sources told the paper that Nasrallah requested full financial and military backing for the fighting in Syria in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The above may be news recently released, but given the pace of the combat in Syria and the spillover into Lebanon, it’s old news predating the battle for al-Qusayr.
However, one may take as signal Russia’s decision implemented today to retrieve its military from the naval base at Tartus.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has withdrawn all military personnel from its naval base in Syria and replaced them with civilian workers, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.
The ministry did not say when the switch at the base at Tartus took place or how many personnel were deployed there. The minor facility is Russia’s only naval outpost outside the former Soviet Union. It consists of several barracks and depots used to service Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean.
AP. “Russia replaces military with civilians at Syrian base.” USA Today, June 27, 2013.
Ah hah!
“We have neither servicemen nor civilians in Syria anymore. Or Russian military instructors assigned to units of the Syrian regular Army, for that matter,” a Russian defense ministry spokesperson is quoted as telling the Moscow business daily Vedomosti yesterday.”
Fred Weir points to Cyprus as an alternative achieving similar ends for Russian naval power and regional influence.
Put that together with this Euronews video from January this year (tipped by a CSM article):
While according to RT, “Russia’s Defense Ministry . . . blasted media reports about total evacuation as “extremely incorrect,” it’s difficult accepting the statement while looking at today’s breaking news and January apparent exodus of civilians by jet (RT, “Russian Defense Ministry refutes reports of Syria evacuation,” June 27, 2013). In fact, RT goes on to actually emphasize aspects of the surface or top story.
Putin’s interests, whether defined financially for the long term or in terms of impact on his reputation in history, which I think more important to him than casually acknowledged, are not with “Islamists” — not in Chechnya with the rebels of the Kavkaz Center variety, not with Iran with Ayatollah Khamenei and his nuclear ambitions that would be used to threaten Russia every bit as much — more — as NATO.
For Putin, the restoration of Russian grandeur and strength, plus strength in national and heroic self-concept, may involve navigating the balance between “bad boy” bravado and action with, actually (gasp!) even greater laudable strategy.
Whatever Putin does, he will be regarded as the bridge between the conniving, defunct, invasive police state that by the merit of the Russian People themselves had come to define the Soviet Union and this New Russian Federation that’s not about to take orders from Washington but might succeed in doing great right things on its own authority.
Most certainly, modern Russians will not want to be remembered for — or long associated with either — with the ravages of Maher al-Assad’s military, and while “the west” can take no pride in backing the kind of warrior that would cut out the liver out of his enemy and eat it, the Russian position, which appears to be decoupling from Syria, sails clear of the taint of that barbarism, albeit later than sooner with regard to the casualties and refugees of the war to date.
The problem with Syria, at the moment, and one of many problems within the Islamic Ummah, is that along the sectarian axis, neither side knows how to stop and both continue to walk toward a fire built on and sustained by their own unrestrained and unreasoning energies.
Additional Reference
Connolly, Kevin. “Syria war exerts strain on Lebanon tinderbox.” BBC, June 27, 2013.
Nebehay, Stephanie. “Syria war likely to drag on, Red Cross president says.” Reuters, June 27, 2013.
ROAvideos. “Defining the Threat: Iranian Strategy in Syria.” Video (1:38:23). June 27, 2013.
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