Is it possible to trust Russia?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

There were doubtful inquires about the position of Russia toward Syria since the beginning of the emergence of the features of turning the crisis in Syria into a war, and the threats of internationalization and the critical foreign intervention through the escalation, as was the speech of the impossibility to trust Russia in using the veto at the Security Council in each time where there is a draft resolution against it, as the speech about the useless of this veto in front of the size of engagement in the war which the opponents of Syria and its enemies show, moreover  regarding as improbable that Russia can do what is beyond politics. But when the so-called the Sokhoi storm started, and when Russia positioned militarily and changed many of the faces of war in Syria, the silence prevailed with the announcement of the truce’s provisions, the question in each time was accompanied with a flow of analyses which explain the interests and show that Russia which aims to regain its lost international prestige, it wanted from the war of Syria an opportunity to improve its negotiating position with the Americans, but when it will reach to what it wants, its attitude toward the war and its position will be changed.

The same thing has happened against Syria and Iran in Lebanon when the resistance was waging the war of liberating the land from the occupation and when Lebanon was exposing to the Israeli wars, the war of resistance was described as the war of agitation not the war of liberation, it was said that it was to serve the negotiating status of Syria in Madrid Conference and its negotiations which ended at the Summit which combined the late President Hafez Al-Assad with the US President Bill Clinton before liberating the South in one month, but the South was liberated however the negotiations have not yet proceeded, it was said as well, that it was a war of enhancing the negotiating position of Iran in the relationship with America and later to serve its nuclear program, towards describing the war of July 2006 as the war by Lebanon to fortify the position of Iran, but the result was that Lebanon liberated its land and raised its deterrent status against the Israeli occupation, while the Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian relationship with the West remained even less than a year.

It is required in the international and regional politics to deal with the alliances through nativity, stupidity, and the admission of their credibility, but the exaggeration in question is like the blind memorizing without reading or analyzing, the necessary awareness to read the rules of the alliances through considering certain interests is involved in reclaiming a law of conflict not to fall in the impressionism which becomes just an applaud and just insults and accusation of treachery at the emergence of any maneuver or flexibility that are required by the logic of conflict. Who observes the law of the relationship of Syria and Iran with the resistance will discover that according to them it is a strategic project not a tactic paper, nor a negotiating paper, and will discover as well that it is one of the sources of their structural power not mere a weighting factor for the sources of the other power. It is impossible to imagine that they can victimize of it or exposing it to harm or even presenting it at the bargains bazars to the extent that it can be said that Syria if it has to choose between its relation with the resistance or the threat of  a war against it, it will accept the risk of  going to war, and that was what has happened, the most prominent reasons of this war was its choice with the resistance, and if Iran has to chooses between its nuclear program which it was said that it made use of the resistance to win it and between the resistance then it will choose the resistance.

Through the logic of interest Russia determines its relationship with the Syrian war through three determinations. First, the change which is dedicated to Syria will be through two inseparable projects one its title is the Ottoman which is led by the Muslim Brotherhood Turkey which if it wins in Syria it will stretch till the Russian borders and will become a direct threat on its national security, second title is Al-Qaeda organization which whenever it gets rooted in Syria the security of Russia is threatened, because the security of Moscow comes from Syria, this was the equation which Catherine II the Caesar of Russia discovered two centuries ago and now it is today’s equation. The second determination is the awareness of Russia that the battle of Syria is a battle of forming a new global system and a new regional system, it is the first involved in both of them, it is the country which considers that it has what makes it deserve a prominent status in the two systems, but the American hegemony which is trying to have an exclusivity in them is facing courageous opponents who can share with it the costs of the necessary confrontation to impose a presence and a role which they are eager to obtain, it knows in advance the costs of the confrontation such as the threat in its backyards from Ukraine and others to the extent of facing the missile shield, waging a war of sanctions and the wars of oil and gas prices , but it is aware that its opportunity will not repeated, as it realizes the size of the revenues and the implications which will result from wining in this confrontation in economics, politics, and the major strategic interests. While the third determination is that Russia which is seeking for this global and regional change is involved in drawing an attracting diplomacy that can build and accumulate the alliances as well as inheriting the status which America occupies in the considerations of the countries on all over the world, the equation is presenting an example of the loyal country to its allies which is reconciled with the equation of the national independence, and which aspired for alliances of the common interests and not the interest exploitation of the immediate needs, this country committed itself to promote the rules of respect of the national sovereignty of the countries , as well as to combat the projects of the foreign interventions and establishing an equation of an international system that is ruled by the international law.

Russia is aware that despite the confrontation which it waged and is waging on all the fronts it faces an opponent which is getting weaker and agent and which loses the ability of the interventions and the wars, despite all the stubbornness and the magnitude of the capacities, as it is aware of the magnitude of the threat which is constituted by Washington’s temper with Al –Qaeda organization as the last reserve through which it wages its wars, and the quickness of its tuning into a dangerous enemy that threatens the West. Russia is aware as well of the weakness of Washington’s allies and their inability to meet the requirements of the war with Al-Qaeda organization whenever its risk is getting more dangerous because of the degree of the intervention between them and it , in contrast it is aware of the magnitude of the strength of the allies who fight against the American hegemony in the region specially the forces and the governments of the resistance’s axis, and the size of their rootedness in the war on terrorism, and thus it is the golden opportunity to wage the war of breaking the American hegemony and putting Washington in front of the choice of the direct war, towards securing a safe exit of the war for it, making use of the development and the rootedness of the terrorism to transfer it to the bank of the accumulation of the political solutions that based on the common joining in the war on terrorism, and the transition to the mandatory acceptance to cooperate with yesterday’s opponents in this war, furthermore the allegation of the political settlements to justify this transition. Moscow is waging its stable battle with Syria according to these determinations and policies. In every time the questions are raised about its credibility or the doubt about the continuation of its war, it surprises all with more resolving and more power, as has happened when it surprised all with the Russian military positioning and what was known as the storm of Sukhoi, and as what will happen with the preparation for a second round of Sukhoi after the political and the military elements of this round have been completed in the northern of Syria.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,