US Secretary of State, John Kerry looks on during the U.N. Security Council meeting on counter-terrorism at the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on September 30, 2015.
More bombs fell in Syria today. More Syrians died. The only real change seemed to be whose military was doing the bombing.
Russian military intervention in Syria began in earnest on Wednesday.
“We naturally do not intend to take a headlong plunge into this conflict, so to speak,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier in the day. “We will be supporting the Syrian Army exclusively in its legitimate fight precisely against terrorist groups.”
Putin says ISIS is the real enemy in Syria. But Russia’s primary objective appears to be throwing a lifeline to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
On Monday, the Russian president spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and he invited world powers to join Moscow in supporting Assad. For his part, President Barack Obama first called for Assad to step down back in August 2011. And today, US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated that demand.
“We must not and will not be confused in our fight against [ISIS] with support for Assad,” Obama said. [ISIS] itself cannot be defeated as long as Bashar al-Assad remains president of Syria.”
Kerry said the US would welcome Russian military actions in Syria if they were directed against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Speaking at the UN Security Council, Kerry said the US and its coalition partners will continue their air campaign against ISIS.
The US would have “grave concerns,” Kerry added, if Russia conducted air strikes against other groups, besides ISIS.
Early indications seemed to suggest that is precisely what occurred on Wednesday.
If the Russians wanted to send a clear signal that their air campaign would be directed at ISIS, they would have chosen very different targets inside Syria. “They’ve attacked an area near Homs, where there aren’t any [ISIS militants],” Paul Danahar, the BBC's North America bureau chief, says.
Danahar is also author of “The New Middle East.” He says the fighters operating in the areas bombed by the Russian military on Wednesday are a mix of different rebel groups, all of them opposed to the Assad regime. “But they’re not in an area where ISIS is prevelant,” he adds.
“What we’ve seen today is a Russian intervention to back Assad, not to fight [ISIS],” Danahar says. “They’ve basically jumped into the war on Assad’s side in a very, very firm way.”
Russia’s support for Assad is nothing new. Moscow has kept up its military assistance for the Syrian government throughout the civil war. The Russian military leases a vital port in the Syrian city of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast. Thousands of Russians live and work in Syria, many of them on defense contracts.
The Russian government also worries about the threat of radical Islamic extremists. Putin talked about that in a recent interview with CBS. He said more than 2,000 fighters have left Russia and ex-Soviet states to join the jihad in Syria and that, “we are better off helping Assad fight them on Syrian territory.”
But Danahar says Moscow sees an opportunity to bolster its influence in the region. “We’re now seeing a much more muscular policy from Russia in the Middle East. In recent years, they’ve been sitting back and waiting to see what happens. Now, they’ve decided that now is a good time to get in and start taking charge,” he says.
The Assad government is sure to benefit from Russian intervention. But it might fall well short of what would be needed to end Assad’s stalemate with rebel forces on the ground and protect him for the long term.
Russian involvement is sure to make the situation more complex. Nearly one dozen different countries have now bombed parts of Syria. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter spoke to reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday and warned that Moscow is, “pouring gasoline on the fire.”
“The Russian approach is doomed to fail,” Carter said.
From Syria's point of view, the Russian military presence is just what is needed in their battle against ISIS.
The Syrian government thinks "it's on the right track to stop ISIS from spreading in Syria and the region," says Amman-based reporter Jane Arraf. She sat down for a one-hour interview with Ayman Alloush, Syria's top diplomat in Jordan. According to Alloush, "ISIS essentially has been… is a devil and this devil, he says, will eat its allies in the region."
Alloush told Arraf that Russia is now involved because they realize "their own interests are in jeopardy." Syria is Russia's only foothold in the Middle East. Syria blames the presence of ISIS as the main driver of Syrians fleeing their homes. Europe is struggling with record numbers of refugees who are fleeing because of conflict, persecution and poverty.
But Western leaders and human rights groups say barrel bombs dropped by Syria's military on opposition neighbourhoods are the real cause. That and the Syrian embassy in Jordan have issued more than 10,000 passports to Syrians who otherwise wouldn't qualify.
Alloush replaced Syrian ambassador Bahjat Suleiman in Jordan over insults against the kingdom. Arraf calls Alloush a new kind of Syrian diplomat. "He is part of what we consider a new charm offensive on the part of the Syrian government … Officials who are now willing to speak, who are comfortable speaking to the West and who know how to speak to them."