Tallying the score: Russia gained much in Syria

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With a formal end to five and half months of a brief Russian military intervention in Syria, many analysts are busy drawing up Russia’s Profit and Loss account from the conflict.

From the start, Russia has maintained that its operation is only designed to last for limited time. It has said that an extensive military presence was never in the cards. Moscow was determined to avoid a protracted military operation that might compel it to deploy ground troops.

Memories of the Soviet Union’s bloody war in Afghanistan are still strong. Russia did not want Syria to be a second Afghanistan. This is why the Kremlin had a minimal set of aims for Syria. Its immediate objective was to stabilize the Assad regime which was on the ropes. The Russians, and President Assad’s Iranian allies, both risked losing their strategic investment in Damascus.

So both stepped up their involvement. The Kremlin may have calculated that with the cessation of hostilities and a peace process in place, that now was the time to reduce its military contingent and cut the risk of getting sucked into a longer conflict.

http://atimes.com/2016/03/tallying-the-score-russia-gained-much-in-syria/

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1. Russia signals interest to defrost ties with Turkey

In an abrupt turnaround, Moscow has put out feelers to Turkey signalling interest in calming tensions in the bilateral relations and opening a new page. The Russian civil aviation authorities have lifted the ban on flights to Antalya on the Mediterranean, which is known as the Turkish Riviera and a popular destination for Russian tourists.

No explanation has been given for the decision, in terms of which Ural Airlines will fly seven times a week from the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan to Antalya.

Moscow had previously banned the sale of tour packages and charter flights to Turkey – as well as import of certain Turkish goods – after a Russian military jet was downed by a Turkish F-16 on Nov. 24. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order to extend Russian economic sanctions against Turkey.

Moscow’s latest decision suggests that Russian tourists may return to Turkey as before. The number of Russian tourists had dropped by a million last year to 3.6 million.

http://atimes.com/2016/03/russia-signals-interest-to-defrost-ties-with-turkey/

[yourpaljoey]

3. Putin the chess master makes yet another brilliant move

Perfect timing, I should think

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4. No point in overdoing it.

Bad strategy anyway, let the Turks deal with Erdogan.

I thought Putin had a hard-on for Erdogan, but apparently like in Ukraine he puts strategy over revenge. He doesn't push his luck.

And yeah, that's smart. And yeah, chess will teach you about that in the most basic sort of way. I used to play two guys in my 20s and 30s who were good at defense, and they cleaned my clock over and over until I got the message.

[yourpaljoey]

5. I thought his handling of Crimea and Ukraine was just about as good as can be

Seems to me he tried to insure the safety of Russians in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine without
going on a land-grab spree. He, of course, had to secure and protect the Crimean naval base, home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

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7. Well, he is just not in a position to go conquering things.

His job is hanging onto things.

If the US government was not so inbred, it would know that that is its job too.

But yeah, he shows a grasp of the situation and a certain flair for tactical surprises.

But mostly he knows how to make his enemies pay for over-reaching. They try to make a move here, he kicks them in the nuts over there. But minimalist, he made Georgia eat two little frozen conflicts, Ukraine has one now, Syria is going to be one, the Baltics can have them too I expect.

[yourpaljoey]

9. agreed

He is looking increasingly like a reasonable, responsible player on the world stage.
Surprising.

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10. "Surprising"

A little. Given Putin's public persona, which is very sophisticated, and yet so Trump-like is some respects. But the mask is off now, no more playing dumb. Too late for that. Everybody knows who he is now.

I didn't pay much attention to him until the Georgia fiasco. And when he gelded the oligarchs.

After a while you notice that despite all the posturing, he never pushes things beyond what he thinks he can do. Nobody pushes him. I notice stuff like that. Obama is like that too, pragmatics matter. We don't do stupid stuff just because we think it will look great. Well, we try.

And that despite the obvious personality clash between the two. I've been watching that dynamic since Sochi. Very interesting.

[yourpaljoey]

11. Please tell me about the gelding of the oligarchs

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12. Sorry don't do research requests.

Back when Ukraine was heating up, one of the things I was interested in was how Putin would handle it. I thought after Georgia and Sochi it would go to his head, but he was very minimalist again. So in that sense, I agree, he's been smarter than I expected.

And Syria reinforces that.

[yourpaljoey]

14. I had not followed him before Ukraine

Now I watch him closely. What will he do next, I ask myself.

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16. That's where I am, and why I don't know that much about the Oligarchs,

not interested before. But here, this will do, I'll read it too:

Putin and the Oligarchs

THE KHODORKOVSKY AFFAIR

In mid-September, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for a radical overhaul of his country's political system, with the goal of centralizing power in the Kremlin. Acting in the wake of the hostage crisis in Beslan, during which Chechen separatists killed hundreds of children, Putin claimed that his power grab was necessary to help Russia win its own war on terrorism. Whatever his motivations, the move represents a major step backward for Russian democracy.

Putin's recent actions may be the most drastic of his tenure so far, but they were hardly the first signs of his willingness to deploy the power of the Russian state for his own purposes. A year earlier, he had Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the oil group Yukos and one of the world's richest men, arrested and thrown in jail on charges of fraud and tax evasion-a move widely interpreted as a declaration of war against the so-called oligarchs, who have amassed phenomenal wealth and power since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. A key question now is whether Khodorkovsky's arrest is the forerunner of what will happen to many of his business colleagues.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2004-11-01/putin-and-oligarchs

And a couple more:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-22/putin-said-to-shrink-inner-circle-as-ukraine-hawks-trump-tycoons

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/a-fallen-russia-oligarch-sends-warning-to-rest-of-putin-insiders

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/opinion/masha-gessen-the-myth-of-the-russian-oligarchs.html

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13. To be clear:

Certain oligarchs were gelded, others were taken aboard.

[yourpaljoey]

15. I fear the thought of Hillary as President

Would she really have attempted to establish a no-fly zone on the border between
Syria and Turkey even as Russia was stepping up under the auspices of the sovereign nation of Syria... really?

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17. I'm not getting into the primaries here.

[yourpaljoey]

18. :)

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2. US arrest of Iranian gold trader linked to Turkish graft scandal puts Erdogan on spot

The arrest of Reza Zarrab, the flamboyant, well-connected and controversial Iranian-Turkish gold trader, in US recently over a fraudulent scheme to help the Iranian government launder hundreds of millions of dollars and evade economic sanctions, has shaken the Turkish government and may reopen a 2013 corruption case that Ankara was trying to project as an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It comes days ahead of Erdogan’s trip to the US. On March 22, the Turkish parliament hurriedly passed laws bringing new curbs on exchanging information about Turkish nationals with foreign authorities which Opposition parties say is mainly aimed at protecting Zarrab

ISTANBUL–The arrest of an Istanbul-based high profile Azerbaijani and Turkish businessman, Reza Zarrab, 33, in Miami on 19 March may have reopened a two-year-old corruption scandal which shook Turkey’s government so strongly in 2013 that to this day President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regards it as an attempted coup against him.

News of the arrest was initially ignored by pro-government newspapers in Turkey but has been hailed by the opposition as a possible political breakthrough. The New York Prosecutor, Preet Bharara, who filed the charges and ordered the arrest, has become a hero to critics of the government with the number of his followers on Twitter, rocketing in five days from 7,000 to 243,000. Replying to a reported flood of offers of gifts from well-wishers in Turkey, Bharara declared on Twitter “I do love shish kebab but I don’t think I can accept gifts just for doing my job.”

Zarrab was seemingly unaware before his arrest that he was under surveillance by the US authorities or might be facing possible indictment. A high profile young businessman and Istanbul socialite, on close terms with Turkey’s ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), he and his Turkish pop star wife, Ebru Gündeş, were familiar figures in the Turkish press and regarded as an inviolable part of the country’s new pro-Erdoğan establishment.

http://atimes.com/2016/03/us-arrest-of-iranian-gold-trader-linked-to-turkish-graft-scandal-puts-erdogan-on-spot-again/

[yourpaljoey]

6. How secure is Erdogan's place in Turkey?

He appears quite the rat from where I sit... do most Turks support him?

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8. Hard to say.

Turkey has deep divisions and Erdogan has made them deeper, but he has a hammerlock on the state apparatus at the moment.

On the other hand he has pissed a lof of people off.