Russia and Syria between the “spring” and the “winter”

Did you ever play a letter mosaic game, trying to build new words from one, which you started the game from? Reading the recent news about Syria and contemplating the expected developments in closest future , I was struck by the fact that the only state name, which could have a meaningful order of the letters in the name of “Syria”, is Russia (actually Rysia – is almost exactly how the Russia is articulated in Arabic and Turkic languages).  Given a meaningful spelling for Arabs is the order of consonants, two countries actually have the same letter in their names, but in a slightly different order (“s-r-y” and “r-s-y”).

After the Arab League extended the term of the observation mission in Syria but Gulf States withheld to send their members, the final withdrawal of the mission could have been easily predicted. The similarity between Libya and Syria cases has become more obvious with the exception of the stand Russia took on Kaddafi’s regime and that of President Assad.

BBC report commented on the suspension of the Arab League's observer mission and the followed upsurge in violence that even “more attention will be focused on the UN Security Council's efforts next week to get a tough resolution on Syria”. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16779203 . An Arab League report to the UN Security Council is expected on the upcoming Tuesday. However Russian foreign minister Lavrov expressed his surprise with the move by Arab League and the Russian attitude to a tough resolution and support to closer foreign engagement in Syria is seemed being unchanged.  

Four days ago on January 25^th the crowd in Cairo celebrated the start of Arab spring. We have alluded to the “global warming” connation of the spring on the Nile banks. http://blog-abunajla.blogspot.com/2011/12/arab-spring-and-global-warming.html .  Russia lives in the expectation of presidential elections on March 4, 2012. The spring is late in Russian climate and the beginning of March is still the time when the land is covered with snow, but the new tide of warming in Russia has started already in December. What can we expect in Russia in March and how the world will respond on that could affect the developments in Syria  in the range between the “S”pring and the winte”R”.

Boots on the ground: might that lead for Russia to regain the Middle East?

NATO airstrikes have turned Libyan government forces back from Benghazi at the outset of attacks, but they failed to end up with final solution. The advancement of loyalists followed and now many observers warn against a stalemate unless on ground operations support anti-Kaddafi forces. The western actors have breached visible neutrality by judging Kaddafi just go. 

Meanwhile the increasing rigor and pressure on Libyan leader to resign, the limitation of UN resolution on Libya to back up anything beyond the non-fly zone and airstrikes is getting ever more evident. Hesitations in home countries about deeper immense into the conflict on opposition side are raised and British parliament, for example,  is preparing to discuss after the Easter vacation if the government was deliberately stretching the limits of UN resolution and escalating the UK role in Libyan conflict. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13112559

 

The first phase of Western engagement in Libya is over, the Kaddafi forces “have weathered the storm and his regime has not collapsed.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13142441 . However opening a new phase to bolster anti-Kaddafi forces on ground is the unknown zone of implications. Rightfully indeed there is a concern of Arab public opinion and ghost of Iraq intervention outcomes that did not bring peace and security to people whom it was declared to serve. 

Indeed what is mostly silenced in Western media but has been evident in Arab news is that Arab revolution has not only been a rise of democracy aspirations but also a wider sense of human dignity and resurrection of new pan-Arab sentiments. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121115231647934.html

 

An outcry for Justice was also rooted in continuing stalemate of Middle East conflict and refugee rights in the region. More consistent dedication to democracy and human rights is required not only from Arabs but also from advanced democracies in Europe and the US. It seems to be quite consistent evolution of once started movement towards humane political order and justice. This time there is a chance to merge the lines of people striving to global peace and justice. All actors are questioned on that testing inside their countries and in their neighbourhoods and relations with others. Alternatively a counter process of reviving polarisation is imminent.

It was not of a sudden that Russian political analysts started revisiting the Middle East policy of the bygone super power. Failure of the West to establish a dialogue with Islam and growing common Arab political space is seen as a chance for Russia to regain the Middle East after three decades of the break. http://www.riss.ru/doklady_i_vystuplenija/doklady_i_vystuplenija?newsId=336/  Misbalances and inconsistency of Western policy in the Middle East work as arguments to assert a new dawn of western imperialism. http://www.riss.ru/aktualnye_kommentarii/?commentsId=145

 

What can the people in struggle for democracy, dignity and human rights expect of such well known landscape of clashing interests? Are we coming to the start of vicious circle, or in fact are stepping to new phase of international order and relationship between western democracies and struggling democracies in the East?  New perspective is seen on horizon of long history of East and West relationship and contest. This phase is about transformation of all principal actors. And that is an essence of new phase, but not just new faces in Arab policy.