Shorash Darwish
Syrian inclination towards the Soviets in the 1950s led to bilateral relations between the two countries, which resulted in the prevention of the invasion of Syrian lands during the so-called 1957 crisis. The credit for this goes to the Soviet leader Khrushchev, who persevered in maintaining a foothold for Moscow in the Middle East. With the collapse of the monarchy in Iraq, the success of the July “revolution”, and the rush of the Baghdad Pact (CENTO) on the one hand, and the newfound Syrian-Egyptian unity on the other, Turkey found the conditions appropriate to engage in a major military invasion in Iraq and Syria along the 35th parallel.
Journalist Chris Kuchera quoted a top secret letter which was sent by Turkish Chief of Staff Fizi Mingog to his American counterpart General Maxwell Taylor in July 1958. In it, he proposed "the deployment of tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers on a very wide front in Iraq and Syria, starting from Kirkuk, through Iraqi Kurdistan, to Hama in Syria. The adventurous Turkish proposal was met by an American refusal. The Americans did not have an urgent need for the Turks, so their proposal was rigorously refuted.” Of course, Washington’s refusal appears sympathetic to Moscow’s tough stance towards any Turkish move that undermines “progressive” Arab regimes, as well as the US’s desire to avoid direct clashes with the Soviets and mutual escalation, just because Turkey, obsessed with expansion, wanted to expand south.
The roots of the Syrian-Russian relationship date back to the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially after the defeat of June 1967, when it became clear that Israel had become an expansionist military entity. Despite Stalin's early recognition of the Israeli state in 1948, sponsoring military governments in Syria became a major part of the Soviet strategy, and perhaps the relationship’s solidity which was built in the Hafez al-Assad era, and what it represented at the peak moment in the era of the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, who supplied the Syrian army with counter-weapons in the early 1980s. Perhaps Andropov's orders to give the Syrians weapons, and if necessary, from the stock of the Red Army, is considered clear proof of the strong and developed relationship between Moscow and the elder Assad.
While the region was rushing to line up behind the United States, Syria kept itself under the Russian umbrella, benefiting from the positioning of the only Russian naval base on the Mediterranean in Tartus and the Latakia base for electronic surveillance. However, the nineties, the beginning of the second millennium, and Moscow’s decline internationally enabled Iran to dominate the scene. The rapprochement brought about by Putin's accession, and Moscow's openness to Israel in contradiction to traditional Russian policy, has allowed Iran to progress more in Syria.
Moscow did its best to protect the Assad regime from its expected collapse, as they have vetoed decisions affecting the course of Syrian events since 2011 in the Security Council Chamber. Russian diplomatic activity was not limited to moving in the basements of the United Nations, as the Russian Foreign Ministry appeared to continue to move in a way that restored the active role of former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov early on during the second Gulf War. The difference was that the situation in Syria necessitated reliance on a maximum number of options. In the subdivision of the geopolitical lines, Syria is part of Russia's historical influence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, so direct military intervention has become an extension of diplomacy but with "other means." According to a study by Carnegie, the intervention came as a "choice, and not an obligation."
Contrary to what happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Chechnya in the nineties, Russia decided not to conduct open land intervention by relying on the deployment of thousands of soldiers. Instead, chose to rely on air power, providing S-200 and S-300 missile systems. Both of these did not take place without Israel interfering in choosing its Syrian targets. On the one hand, the lack of ground intervention reduced the Russian material and human costs, but it also enabled the Syrian regime to maintain its influence on the ground in the game of exchanging power between the earth and the sky, because the disruption of the function of one means the deterioration of the status of the other.
The link between Moscow and Assad appears difficult to disassemble, since Assad’s survival depends on the Russians. But the opposite is also true, as Moscow’s presence in Syria depends on Assad’s rule, despite what the Russian press and Federal News Agency openly described as “weakness” of the Syrian President in controlling corruption, the regime’s inner circle, and “the regime’s officials’ exploitation of Russian aid,”. This is also despite reports by research centers such as the Russian Council for International Affairs’s report, which talked about the possibility of a US-Russian-Iranian-Turkish agreement to “remove the Syrian president and implement a ceasefire.” Of course, most Russian media outlets and research centers report directly to the Kremlin, which in turn reflects the wrath of Assad's economic policies and political abilities, which has dumped Russia in the Syrian quagmire for too long.
The recent unprecedented Russian statements seem open to the possibility of first engaging in economic purification policies, and secondly not relying on using the Moscow and Tehran connections that Damascus has mastered throughout the years of the crisis. Putin's anger, according to Bloomberg, appears to be because Assad should "show more flexibility in talking to other political groups."
In all cases, speculation about the fate of Assad should not be excessive, but according to recent Russian positions based on the "impatience" of the Kremlin, it is possible to cautiously expect internal changes. It is an exaggeration to say that the changes may affect Bashar al-Assad. Up to this moment, the reality on the ground is that Russia remains in Syria via the Assad presidency, and gives it legitimacy.
According to the long historical streak of the Russian-Syrian relationship, and the umbrella that the former provided to protect the latter in critical situations, Moscow has never interfered to overthrow governments or remove of presidents, and Bashar al-Assad will not be the Russian exception to the decades-long path of strong relations.