диссертация (1169605), страница 29
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Thesecond installment of an eventual three-part series, “A Peace Plan for Syria II:Options for Future Governance” 254, elaborates on arguments about why the USshould promote a “federal” or “confederal” “solution” to the War on Syria.Nothing too new is mentioned in this document, as it’s essentially a rehash ofO’Hanlon’s arguments, which themselves were Americanized reiterations of whatthe Kurds first suggested in February 2015.The reason why this is being brought up in the context of this dissertation isbecause it’s proof that the idea of “federalization” had begun to take hold of theAmerican think tank community, and it also provides a paper trail for arguing thatimportant influencers were peddling this policy proposal for some time.
TheBrookings Institution and RAND Corporation lobbying may have indeed had apowerful effect in shaping American strategy towards the Kurds. This is significantfor academics to take note of if they’re studying the progression of Americanstrategy towards the Mideast and especially Syria.The Kurdish issue has acquired salience in the later stages of the War onSyria. Had it not been for the PYD-YPG unilateral and illegal “federalization”254Dobbins J, Gordon P., Martini J. A Peace Plan For Syria II: Options For Future Governance. RAND Corporation.7 June 2016.
Web. 28 January 2018. http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE202.html.119decree, Turkey wouldn’t have thought that they’d pose as dire of a threat to itsterritorial sovereignty, and consequently, no invasion would likely havecommenced. However, because the Kurds openly declared their desire to “unify”the myriad “cantons” under their occupation in northern Syria and therefore defacto create what Turkey believed to be a PKK-backed statelet along its entiresouthern borderland, Ankara was moved to act before this plan could becompleted.Turkey’s invasion occurred after the failed coup attempt against Erdoganand in the midst of the fast-moving Russian-Turkish rapprochement, and alsofollowed the Kurds’ capture of Manbij on the western side of the Euphrates.
Thislast point proved to be the trigger for Turkey’s actions because it demonstrated toAnkara that the group was on the verge of finally carrying through on their“unification” pledge. It’s here where the geopolitical situation gets verycomplicated, though, because the Kurds are traditional allies of Russia in spite oftheir present proxy servitude vis-à-vis the US, and Moscow was in a position tostop Ankara if it felt inclined to do so. However, Russia didn’t do anything to stopTurkey, and this raises very serious questions about why that was.The Syrian Arab Republic officially and consistently condemned Turkey’sinvasion as an illegal occupation, yet Damascus chief ally – Moscow – did nothingto stop this breach of international law. To the contrary, Russia continued to itsrapprochement with Turkey and would eventually carry out joint anti-terroristairstrikes with it around Al Bab in January 2017.
The reason for this is verynuanced and is likely attributable to Russia seeking to present itself as the chiefGreat Power balancer all throughout Eurasia, which would naturally include thearea of its present military focus, the Middle East. Russia and Turkey have muchmore to gain from one another if they’re cooperating on positive terms, so it makessense from the Russian perspective why Moscow would proverbially ‘turn a blindeye’ to Ankara’s transgressions of international law in Syria.This might be especially so since at the time Russia could have been underthe impression that the American-backed “unification” of the Kurdish “cantons”120would have sparked an unstoppable geopolitical chain reaction which could haverapidly ended with the complete unraveling of the Sykes-Picot order and theunveiling of a “New Greater Middle East” through “Blood Borders”.
That’s not tosay that Russia was “betraying” the Kurds, either, but just that its leadership mighthave wagered that it’s better for Turkey to “balance” them out and therefore dilutethe group’s pro-American geopolitical disposition in order to buy time for a morethorough Russian-led political solution to be offered in the coming future. This isindeed what would happen in January 2017 with the Russian-written “draftconstitution” for Syria, which would represent a reversal in many respects to whatMoscow’s previously stated position was towards the Syrian Kurds and“decentralization”.Russia was adamantly opposed to changing the borders in the Middle East,seeing this as a dangerous precedent which would inevitably snowball out ofcontrol after opening Pandora’s Box.
This is still true into the present day, andUNSC Resolution 2254 also calls for all sides to respect Syria’s internationallyrecognized borders, though the key point of contention is now coming down towhat should happen to the administrative-political ones within the country. Hereinlies the paradox of Russian policy – on the one hand, Russia doesn’t want the USto succeed in geopolitically re-engineering the Mideast’s formal internationalborders, though on the other, this process will inevitably happen sooner or later ifthe internal borders of the regional states are changed and de-facto independentstatelets emerge in their place.This dilemma continues to confound Russian decision makers, and it can beillustrated most clearly by what a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee at theupper house of the Russian parliament said in late October 2016.
AlexanderBabakov told the Izvestia newspaper that “…the US wants to support thefederalization of Syria, including establishing an autonomous Kurdish region” 255,highlighting that Moscow was indeed aware of the US state-reformatting plans and255Country Torn Apart: Ultimate Goal of US, Turkish Military Campaigns in Syria. Sputnik. 30 Oct.
2016. Web. 28January 2018. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201610301046892243-us-turkey-syria-federalization/.121inferring that it was preparing countermeasures for opposing it. But then thingsbegan to change just a few months later in December 2016. Reuters reported thatRussia had supposedly been entertaining a plan to divide Syria into “spheres ofinfluence”256. There was not anything new but the difference this time was that thetalk supposedly included Iran and Turkey, and it came just a week after the threeconcluded their historic Tripartite meeting in the Russian capital and issued theMoscow Declaration.The only possible explanation for this pivot was the battlefield situation inSyria at the time.
The SDF had made strong inroads towards Raqqa, the so-calledcapital of Daesh, and it already seemed by that time to be a fait accompli that theUS proxies would be the ones to liberate that city and therefore enter into a premierposition to dictate their preferred post-war settlement terms to Damascus.Moreover, Russia has continually stressed that it only wants a political – notmilitary – solution to the War on Syria, and Moscow is very risk-averse anddoesn’t want to chance getting drawn into an Afghan-like quagmire. For thesereasons, Moscow didn’t commit the same level of military resources and effort tothe “Race for Raqqa” as it had to the liberation of Aleppo, so Russia might havereckoned that the best ‘trade-off’ is to “give” Aleppo to President Assad and inexchange grant the Kurds “decentralization” and “cultural autonomy” as some sortof ‘compromise’, which could have also been influenced by the conflict of intereststhat it has with the US east of the Euphrates.V.
Naumkin warned that the Sykes-Picot order began to collapse in thebeginning of the 21st century, and that this has led to a regional identity crisis. Hesaid that “the trend could have serious consequences, including changing of stateborders” that be believes “is a serious identity crisis rooted in a number of deepinner tensions as well as meddling in the region from abroad.” He assessed thatthis is very dangerous and not something that the Mideast needs at all.Commenting on the paradigm shift that’s unfolded since the beginning of the256Osborn A., Coskun O. Russia, Turkey, Iran eye dicing Syria into zones of influence. Reuters.
28 Dec. 2016. Web.28 January 2018. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-deal-idUSKBN14H12V?il=0.122century, he drew attention to the following: “What we’re witnessing now is the factthat the regional center of power has moved. Previously, there were three pillarsof the Arab world – Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Now, their role has decreased and thebalance changed towards other Arab nations, like Saudi Arabia, or beyond theArab world, to non-Arab countries, like Iran, Turkey and Israel. They are muchpowerful today”257.He’s right – some non-Arab actors are becoming much more powerful thanArab ones, despite the Arabs being the largest ethnic group in the Middle East.
Partof this has to do with Israel’s Yinon Plan of dividing and ruling the region throughthe exploitation of identity conflicts (Hybrid Wars) within the territories of its Arabneighbors. Concurrent with this, Egypt ceded its Nasser-era leadership of the ArabWorld when it signed a peace treaty with Israel, while Iraq was decimated after theruinous Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s that the US helped encourage and sustain.
Italso didn’t help any that Iraq’s military was crushed during the US-led Gulf War in1991, with Washington dealing a literal death blow to the Iraq state after its 2003war and subsequent occupation. As for Syria, the thesis has already elaborated atlength in the previous two chapters on the chronology of the US Hybrid War ofTerror on Syria.The aggregate result of the weakening of Arab states is that Iran, Turkey,and Israel became stronger, as did US-ally Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, the leadershipvoid left by the demise of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East made it so that therival ideology of Wahhabism and religious extremism began to rise. On top of allof this, the United States was able to skillfully manage the region in order topromote a Balance of Power advantageous to its interests. Unwittingly, however,the US overstepped with the Iraq War and the “Arab Spring” in Syria, as theformer led to the growth of Iranian influence while the latter eventually providedthe pretext for Russia to militarily intervene in fighting terrorism there.Nevertheless, V.
Naumkin’s point is still valid, and his observations about an257Naumkin V. 'Identity Crisis': New Balance of Power Emerges in Middle East. Russian International AffairsCouncil, 2 Dec. 2016, Web. 27 April 2018. russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/comments/identity-crisisnew-balance-of-power-emerges-in-middle-east/.123identity crisis hold true.
Not only are some of the people in the formerly secularstates of the Middle East turning to Wahhabism and other forms of extremism, butthe non-Arab minorities within some of them such as the Kurds in Syria are beingweaponized as instruments of power for external actors such as the United States.It’s with this in mind that Russia has sought to challenge its rival in competing forinfluence with this particular group.V. Naumkin wrote a little bit on this topic back in 2015 where he accuratelypredicted Russia’s support for Syria’s “decentralization”.
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