Putin's dilemma

I said a month ago that what I perceived to be Putin's plan for Syria would inevitably would go wrong.
In warfare things always go wrong at a certain point. It is not a proces you can completely control. The more complex, the less control and I think we can agree that the Syria situation is one in the range of highest complexity.

For a month now I couldn't understand why people were applauding Putin's action and criticizing Obama's inaction. For me the inevitability of failure was so obvious it was only a matter of time before it would show. 

I think we reached this point now.

South of Aleppo the Iranians gained some ground but for the rest the offensive bogged down pretty quickly and was even reversed in some places. Substantial losses in manpower and vehicles.
-I just learned Russian planes killed 16 Hezbollah fighters today in a friendly fire incident.

If the Metrojet crash in Sinai is indeed the work of IS it would be an enormous drawback. It would force Putin to respond. Probably by committing more forces and that would drag Russia further in the quagmire that is Syria.

This dilemma is probably the reason why they are not jumping to conclusions to the cause of the crash. Maybe they will even deny it was an IS bomb.

I get the impression Obama understands very well Syria is something you don't want to get too involved in. And why would the US? What is there to gain? What is the US strategic interest in Syria? It's just about containing IS and, for now, there is no reason to involve western ground troops to achieve that.

Like Jeremy Shapiro from Brookings said last month in a VOX article: 

"The Russian intervention is so incredibly stupid that it took the US by surprise that Putin would actually do it."
and:
"When your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him."

We'll just have to wait and see how this works out. Inaction is not necessarily always a bad thing.

Putin's endgame in Syria

After a few days of attacks by the Russians in Syria we can conclude that IS is not really the target. Instead it is mainly the US backed moderate groups and Jaish al-Fateh/Nusra who are targeted.

What could be Putin's plan.

We've heard a lot of motives for Putin to get into Syria: Draw attention away from Ukraine because that conflict is going nowhere, wanting a central position on the world stage, annoying the West and U.S. in particular, save his old ally Assad, save his mediterranean navy base, creating a negotiation position to keep the Crimea and/or get rid of the sanctions, strengthening his position in the Middle-East or even maybe become the Great Peacemaker.

All are probably true, or partially, or to a certain degree. What you want to do then is come up with a sort of endgame for Syria. The only viable endgame is a political solution where the regime (with or without Assad) negotiate a peace with the rebels (with or without Nusra)

Note that IS is not a party in these negotiations. They shouldn't be. For Putin they're not even that relevant as long as IS leaves the regime relatively alone, as they have done the last two years.

Putin wants to negotiate from a position of strength of course. When you start to talk to the rebels you want to do that from the position where the rebels feel they can't win militarily, when the regime is winning. Or at least the perception is that they're winning. Currently that's not the case.
But as we have seen momentum has changed sides several times in this war. First the rebels seemed to be winning, until the Iranians brought in Hezbollah. The tide seemed to be changing again when ISIS entered from Iraq in 2013 but they and the other rebels turned on each other. During 2014 it stayed relatively stable until the cooperation between Turkey, Qatar and Saudi-Arabia supporting the rebels started. The rebel coalition Jaish al-Fateh managed to make big gains this year in Idlib province which prompted the Iranians to ask Russia for help since Assad's forces are really short on manpower, Hezbollah had been severely battered, Iran doesn't really want to commit their own troops and Shia militias from Iraq and Afghanistan can't make the difference either.

It all comes down to get the timing right to start negotiations. Time is not on Putin's side. He cannot afford a prolonged war. Not financially and not at home. So if he can have a short offensive pummeling the rebels, getting rid of pockets like the one north of Homs and take back some parts of Idlib and the perception is they could go all the way to Aleppo and the Turkish border. Putin, at that point, might be 'convinced' by the West to have Assad negotiate with the rebels. Right now the rebels are in no way ready to talk to Assad but if you're losing you don't have much choice. That could result in a sort of deal for western Syria. The Caliphate will have to wait.

Then Putin is the great peacemaker, we forget about the Crimea, he may even quietly pull the plug on the rebels in Donbass, the sanctions are lifted and the West gets to continue the endless war on IS. Win-win for Putin.

But as the old Moltke adagium goes: No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. So a lot can go wrong along the way and it will be interesting to see how Putin will deal with the inevitable failures. Will he be sucked into the quagmire? Will he give up and leave or wil his intervention just peter out.

Russian intervention in Syria

When the Russians started moving equipment to Syria my first instinct was that they were going to help Assad survive. Claiming to 'fight terrorism' they would just be pulling an 'Erdogan.' Nusra an Ahrar al-Sham would be the targets.
No way were they going to attack IS.

But now I start to wonder if Putin has a grander plan. 
What I would like to know first is whose initiative this Russian intervention was. 

Putin's initiative? Worried about his embattled ally, or about his mediterranean navy base? Looking for a bigger strategic involvement in the Middle East? Worried about losing influence over Assad to the Iranians?

Iran's initiative? Running out of options to save Assad's regime. Asked the Russians to pitch in. 
According to the Financial Times Tehran was 'surprised' by the Russian intervention but its story is based on a unnamed source and since a lot of the Russian equipment used Iranian airspace to go to Syria I don't think we should take it too seriously.

Assad's initiative? Worried, like Abadi in Iraq, about growing Iranian influence over his regime. Iranians building a parallel power structure with militias like they did in Lebanon and Iraq. Invited the Russians as a counterweight for that.

I don't think we'll get an answer to that question any time soon. The only thing we can do is monitor every move for clues.

Russian troops are reportedly stationed no where near IS front lines. Having a lot of people concluding that IS is not the target. But that doesn't have to be the case. Ground troops are just a small contingent of the Russian force so far. Not enough to conduct any offensive. Russian action will come from the air component. Their position is irrelevant to where they will strike.

What I did see was Russian drone footage from Palmyra. Now this could be a case of maskirovka. Trying to fool us that IS is the target. I actually joked last week that Putin could pull a nice PR stunt if he would 'liberate' the antiquities of Palmyra. But it could also mean Putin actually wants to degrade IS, and maybe try to succeed where the U.S. have so far failed, to create a strong strategical and diplomatic position in the Middle East. 

With IS out of the way Putin could offer a political solution for Syria without Assad since the West biggest fear has always been that toppling Assad would empower IS. Cease fires with the opposition are already being negotiated, like in Zabadani. 

Rouhani has been hinting at a political solution, but only after the fighting stops. Big question is whether Syria is in Rouhani's jurisdiction. Up till now it has been Soleimani's domain, under direct guidance from Khamenei. Is Rouhani operating on his own, part of the internal Iranian struggle between moderates and hardliners? Or is Khamenei playing a good cop, bad cop game through Rouhani and Soleimani?

Another possible, but cynical, scenario is the one where the Russians destroy Nusra and the moderate opposition. Making the Syria conflict just one between Assad and IS. Forcing the rest of the world to support Assad.

The big if is whether a hand full of Russian planes could make such an impact. That remains very much to be seen.