As most onlookers – especially Obama’s critics – know, Russia’s and Mr. Putin’s goals in Syria have little to do with humanitarian concern for the Syrian people. Rather, Russia’s main goal is to use the Syrian crisis as an elevator to rise to the level of a global power, and install Putin as its power broker. Critics argue that by agreeing to Russia’s deal, Obama looks weak and only furthers Russia’s global ambitions.
The problem is that Russia lacks not only the economic and military strength needed for global power standing (its economy is not much larger than that of Mexico and about one-eighth the size of the American economy), but it also lacks a plausible global model with which to attract a following. Internally, Russia is an illiberal, corrupt oligarchy. Externally it seeks to extend its international shadow as a means of strengthening a tenuous domestic legitimacy. Its global following, if it can be called that, is comprised of regimes such as Assad’s Syria, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, and Chavez’s Venezuela.
Ironically, and at the continuing loss of Syrian lives and dislocations, the Russian decision to join in eliminating Assad’s chemical weapons allows the Obama administration a breathing space in which it can continue its shift to Asia and focus on strengthening the Syrian opposition. Both promise a different and more hopeful outcome for the US over the long-term than Obama’s Syria critics have grasped.
Edward Haley is director of the Center for Human Rights Leadership and W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of International Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College.
