Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumRussia pursues a new Baghdad Pact
President Putin has sent his crack military troops to Syria with a much broader set of objectives in mind than preventing the downfall of President Assad. The Russians have no illusions that they can put an end to the horrific bloodletting in Syria. They know the country well, especially what remains of its army. They have no intentions of taking the risk of sinking into the civil war quagmire, as President Obama predicted they would, because they are not planning on introducing ground troops to the battlefields there.
In fact, Putin has embarked upon a very ambitious endeavor to turn the page on the painful (for him) expulsion of the Soviet Union from Egypt orchestrated by Dr. Henry Kissinger and executed by President Sadat in the early seventies. Since that point, the Kremlin has been relegated to a secondary role if any in the region, restricted to maintaining some degree of influence in countries such as Syria, Libya and Saddam Husseins Iraq. However, Putin feels that the void created by the current US administration in the turbulent Middle East clearly invites him to play his hand. Although he probably can invest only limited resources in his new project, bearing in mind Russias severe economic difficulties and the steady decline of its military capabilities, Putin is bent on trying to establish a Russian sponsored new version of the old Baghdad Pact as the core anchor of the emerging Middle East.
In 1955, Great Britain still aspiring to exercise dominant influence in its former empire enlisted Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Jordan into what was planned to become a solid alliance that would cement the links between the Middle East and the West. The Baghdad Pact encountered stiff Soviet opposition over the years and was finally dissolved in 1979. Now Putin is seeking to forge a similar alliance, although he is not necessarily interested in a formal treaty, consisting of Iran, Iraq and Syria complemented by increasing separate cooperation between Moscow and General Sisis Egypt, which publicly supports the Russian intervention in Syria, and the Kurds, who the Russians are urging to attack ISILs de facto capital in Raqqa. The Russian planners have even allocated a role for Israel in their effort to redesign the political landscape: They are offering to buy a substantial chunk of Israels newly discovered gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, largely owned by Noble Energy of Texas, and provide military guarantees against attacks on the offshore installations by Hezbollah, which is already equipped with Russian-made 300 km-range Yakhont surface-to-sea missiles. Gazpromistan, as energy experts often refer to Russia, is also proposing to take care of exporting the gas to Europe.
The first move Putin undertook after deploying his front line aircraft to the Bassel Al-Assad air base near Latakia was to offer to expand his air campaign to neighboring Iraq. Whereas in Syria the Russians do not focus on targeting ISIL, they have promised to do so in Iraq and Prime Minister Abadi, disappointed with the American performance so far, is proving receptive. It wont be long before Putin probes whether the Iraqis would be willing to grant him an airbase in their territory. Tallil Air Base, operated by the Americans until 2011, would be, perhaps, the most likely choice.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/russia-pursues-a-new-baghdad-pact/
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Looks interesting for sure.