One of the Middle East experts that has disappointed me was Daniel Pipes, who has suggested overlooking the bloodbath in Syria and allowing both sides to destroy each other. In a TV interview, he restated his policy, suggesting that the West should back Assad, and keep Syrians killing each other.

Tezyapar, Sinem.  “Turkey and Israel Should Intervene in Syria.”  The Jewish Press, May 26, 2013.

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While many following Syria’s destabilization focus on NATO and Russian military exercises in the region and their relationship to Iran’s looming nuclear capability, few, it seems, care to focus more exclusively on Russia’s Soviet and post-Soviet relationship with the Assad regime, President Putin’s partial realignment with Israel — alternatively, a shifting away from Iran — and his commitment to the fulfillment of Russian defense deliveries, including, recently, surface-to-air and surface-to-ship missiles, that sustain the Assad military while keeping NATO at bay in Syria.

Syria presents a difficult puzzle, one whose possibilities include Obama and Putin (Pipes may only watch) colluding to drain through Syria Iran’s financial and military strength.

Whether that’s what they’re doing while reprising Cold War posturing, I have no idea, but whether so or not, that’s what’s happening: Russian defense contracts have been fulfilled with Iranian financial support; Hezbollah has mobilized in Syria; and Syria as the state it was two years ago has failed and can never return to its former state of affairs, and that partially guaranteed by Maher Al-Assad’s propensity for shooting, bombing, and perhaps gassing noncombatants; and such as Qatar have already replaced Syria’s embassy with a compound ready for revolutionaries who make it.

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Syria may also be surveyed from the future: what’s in it for whom among the outside forces?

If Qatar picks up a state under Sunni sway, where would that leave Putin who, in light of the experience in Chechnya, has zero interest in allowing or encouraging other than a predominantly secular state on his flank? What’s in the Syrian rebel mix today certainly isn’t working for Vlad.

Given the U.S. experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, an enthused NATO intervention, much less one irritating Russian forces (again, if they’re genuinely deployed for Russo-NATO confrontation), may not have much to recommend in relation to the mixed results associated with experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

Israel and NATO may have broad democratic and humanitarian interests in ameliorating the disaster in Syria, but, as suggested elsewhere on this blog, I think the true target in the region is Iran and its nuclear weapons program, and while the Obama Administration on the surface seems to be urging Putin to pressure the Assad regime out of business, it’s Putin who, colloquially, holds the cards, starting with Syria’s status as a Russian buffer and client.

Only God knows how Putin’s going to “work Syria” so that it works not only for Russian long-term interests but for his own greater glory and historic reputation as well.

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I’m leaving the whole video alone here, but remarks on the Syrian Civil War start at about 14:00.

Daniel Pipes: “I don’t want to see anyone win here.  They’re disastrous, they’re horrid.  They’re both engaged in war crimes . . . I shudder to think what it would be like were the rebels to take over Damascus . . . it would be as bad if not worse than the Assad regime.”

Pipes to Newsmax on Syrian Civil War: ‘I Want Both Sides to Lose’.  NewsmaxTV, April 3, 2013.

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