What is one to make of what is happening in Syria? In particular, what is one to make of the American position? The Russian position is fairly clear. They are helping their ally. It is important to them geo-strategically to have a strong presence in the Middle East to protect their own southern flank. They are not going to let Syria fall into the hands of any pro-Western faction if they can possibly help it. In addition, the war gives them a test bed for weapons. Today they will be looking carefully into how many cruise missiles they were able to shoot down and how many not and why. Improving anti-aircraft defenses is a Russian priority, not least because they export this stuff and that makes money. Having live practice is the ultimate test bed for new equipment.
The fact is that the Russians and Syrians are winning this war. One might not like the policies and manner of the Assad regime, but it is actually restoring more order in Syria than anybody else at the moment. They have now cleared rebels out of Douma so that neighbouring areas are not subject to attacks and life can return to what, for the Middle east, counts as normal. That is probably a relief to many people in the area. Although the Western press likes to make much of Syrian iniquities, the fact is that iniquities are part of warfare and much of the press coverage is unbalanced and hypocritical. The Syrian-Russian approach seems to be to systematically clear the country of rebels by laying siege to rebel areas until conditions start to become desperate, then attacking quite fiercely but as soon as possible giving the rebels an option of being bussed out to safety a long way away. At that point, real rebels are allowed to leave, usually being allowed to take their portable weapons with them, while others change sides and join the government forces and civilians move into government held areas hoping eventually to move back to their old home. All-in-all this, given that it is a war, this is not an atrocious way to proceed. There really is no evidence of any attempt at genocide.
What of chemical weapons? Assuming that it is true that the Syrians do occasionally use chemical weapons, it is interesting that their use is quite rare. Chemicals are now part of the arsenal of modern warfare. The Americans used white sulphur against ISIS (note, this was glossed over in the press). Of the total number of people killed in this war, the proportion who have died from chemical poisoning is, however, very small. Chemical weapons have been described as "the poor man's atom bomb" in the sense that they are a weapon of mass destruction that is within the means of poorer countries to produce. The rich countries that have nuclear weapons of mass destruction do not want this monopoly challenged (the US and Britain almost certainly also have substantial stockpiles of chemical weapons). My own grandfather died eventually of the long term effects of chemical weapon poisoning, having been gassed during the First World War. As far as I can see, war is horrible and many people get killed, the majority of them being civilian non-combatants. Would you rather be blown up by a drone bomb, burned to death by an incendiary, or poisoned by gas?
President Trump is, apparently shocked and horrified that Syria used (if it did) chemical weapons and killed some people, but if people fleeing from such barbarism knock at America's door, the door is closed, so how far does this compassion go? Also, Trump has himself said that if you want to inflict real damage on an enemy you do not tell him in advance what you are going to do, so this time he tells them in advance what he is going to do and gives them time to evacuate and move aircraft and equipment. The Americans then send a large number of cruise missile to hit empty buildings, and the next day life goes on as usual. It is difficult to believe that this is going to have a lot of impact on the policies of the Assad government. So what is the American position? When you are losing, what can you salvage? Perhaps, the moral high ground is all that is left.
The Assad family has ruled Syria for some time now and during that time their basic policy has been that of getting the Americans and everybody else except their own invited allies out of their country. They successfully got President Reagan to withdraw by blowing up the US barracks. Eventually the Americans hit back by arming rebel factions in the country and that is how the present war started. When we weep over the casualties we seem to forget that we started it. The West thought that it could topple Assad as easily as Gaddafi. They were wrong. In any case, not everybody now thinks that toppling Gaddafi was such a good idea and the double thinking involved in all that beggars belief. Gaddafi's dying words were "Do you know right from wrong?" In any case, it was surely obvious that the Russians were not going to sit idly by and let Syria go. In effect, American action in the Middle East has substantially back-fired. Iran and Syria are now firm Russian allies. Turkey, a NATO member, is now very much on the fence and its leader spends more time in Moscow than in Washington. Iraq is substantially under the influence of Iran. And the American support for the Kurds, much as one sympathises with them, has only made matters worse.
It is not really surprising that Trump wants to pull out. At the same time, he has to keep in with his electoral base in the USA. So he is trying to achieve the magic formula of American politics which is to look tough while bring the boys home. This is not an easy balancing act, but he is managing it as well as any previous president, I suppose, and better than some, so far.
As best one can predict, the Americans will gradually go home - after all they have plenty of oil of their own now, even if the method of getting it is destroying the environment. The Russians will stay. The Turks will carve out a dependent Sunni territory in the north and the Kurds will probably maintain a foothold in the east. The American supported rebellion will gradually fade away. In the world of real-politik this is about the best one could hope for. It would create a situation where the average Syrian shop-keeper can ply his trade without too much fear of being bombed, beheaded or kidnapped and can even go and visit his half Russian grandchildren on Sundays.
Replies
Looking at this a few days after: What strikes me is how much all of this seems like theatre. It is a big stage performance in which minor players do actually get killed. Dispite all the shows of hurt feelings, all the major players feel they have gained. The Americans and their followers feel self-righteaous and victorious because they have punished a wrong-doing and reasserted themselves as the arbiters of what is right and wrong in the world. The Syrians were celebrating in the streets the day after the bombardment because from their point of view they saw off an attack by the big bully using out of date (20 year old soviet style S-200 anti-aircraft equipment). This has put Assad in a stronger position. The Russians are happy because they are winning the war inch by inch and they will sell more military equipment. The Turks were not involved but they have certainly not lost anything by this. So everybody is presenting themselves as deeply aggrieved so as not to be seen gloating too much. It's a wierd world.
The Russians will now be pondering whether to up-grade Syrian anti-aircraft equipment. They are currently selling S-400s to the Turks, which is also wierd since turkey is still officially a member of NATO. The trouble with selling them to the Syrians, I suppose, is that the Syrians will then use them to shoot down Israeli planes and Putin is walking a narrow tightrope in relations with Israel.