Posted on 03/26/2013 5:47:51 PM PDT by cunning_fish
Mistaking Syria for Chechya
Summary: Vladimir Putin's unwavering support for the Assad regime in Syria is best explained by his dread of fracturing states and Sunni Islamism -- fears he confronted most directly while brutally suppressing Chechnya's attempted secession from Russia.
Few issues better illustrate the limits of the Obama administrations reset with Russia than the crisis in Syria. For more than a year, the United States has tried, and failed, to work with Russia to find a solution to end the violence. Moscow has firmly opposed international intervention to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power, arguing that the conflict must be resolved through negotiations and that Assad must be included in any transitional arrangement leading to a new government. Although the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, reached out recently to the leaders of the Syrian opposition, these talks produced no indication that the Kremlin is seriously recalibrating its positions on Syria. And thats hardly surprising: the main obstacle to any shift in Russias calculations is President Vladimir Putin himself, whose aversion to forcible regime change is intense and unwavering.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.foreignaffairs.com ...
For Putin, Syria is all too reminiscent of Chechnya. Both conflicts pitted the state against disparate and leaderless opposition forces, which over time came to include extremist Sunni Islamist groups. In Putins view -- one that he stresses repeatedly in meetings with his U.S. and European counterparts -- Syria is the latest battleground in a global, multi-decade struggle between secular states and Sunni Islamism, which first began in Afghanistan with the Taliban, then moved to Chechnya, and has torn a number of Arab countries apart. Ever since he took office (first as prime minister in 1999 and then as president in 2000) and was confronted by the Chechen war, Putin has expressed his fear of Sunni Islamist extremism and of the risks that jihadist groups pose to Russia, with its large, indigenous, Sunni Muslim population, concentrated in the North Caucasus, the Volga region, and in major cities such as Moscow. A desire to contain extremism is a major reason why Putin offered help to the United States in battling the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11. It is also why Russia maintains close relations with Shia Iran, which acts as a counterweight to Sunni powers.
In the case of Chechnya, Putin made it clear that retaking the republic from its extremist opposition forces was worth every sacrifice. In a speech in September 1999, he promised to pursue Chechen rebels and terrorists even into the outhouse. He did just that, and some opposition leaders were killed by missile attacks at their most vulnerable moments. The Chechen capital city of Grozny was reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed, along with jihadist fighters who came into Chechnya with the encouragement of extremist groups from the Arab world, including from Syria. Moscow and other Russian cities endured devastating terrorist attacks. Putins treatment of Chechnya became a cautionary tale of what would happen to rebels and terrorists -- and indeed to entire groups of people -- if they threatened the Russian state. They would either be eliminated or brought to their knees -- exactly the fate Putin wishes for todays Syrian rebels.
After two decades of secessionist strife, Putin has contained Chechnyas uprising. Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel who switched his allegiance to Moscow, now leads the republic. Putin granted Kadyrov and his supporters amnesty and gave them a mandate to go after other militants and political opponents. Kadyrov has rebuilt Grozny (with ample funds from Moscow) and created his own version of an Islamist and Chechen republic that is condemned by human rights organizations for its brutal suppression of dissent.
I have a more simple take.
Putin wants to build a Russian Empire, and bemoans setbacks to that goal..
The Muslim Brotherhood and the majority radical Muslims want to build an Islamic Empire (World Caliphate).
Obama and the DemoRats want America to descend into a third world serf populated socialist dictatorship paying international taxes to the rest of the world.
I like Putin's idea best.
Better to have the Russians in control of the area than the Islamo-Fascists.
Warm Water Port!
... the only language that Islamists understand.
“brutal suppression
... the only language that Islamists understand.”
Bingo.
Other then that, in the last paragraph, it almost reads as if Putin made Kadyrov and his men. In the mafiya sense of the term.
Well, in defence of Iran, it hasn’t went further empty oral threats in it’s hostility towards US recently. Iran is also at war with extremist islamist groups who actually harmed Americans (AQ, Taliban, MB).
It worth mentioning that Iran is still a functional republic with public politics, elections etc. For that reason I can’t see mullahs’ reign as something infinite. It may change for good.
Can’t say same about Arab Spring legacy.
And about the only goal of the Arab Spring that I can discern, is the goal of unleashing chaos in the region. So with regards to harming Sunni Nation States, letting the EU/DC Kleptocrats do their thing, might be the best option to harming the Sunni. The worse enemy the Sunni Nation States have is apparently a friendly EU/DC. Just look at what the EU/DC have done for them the past year or two.
But then again, if the EU/DC goal is to unleash chaos within the Sunni Nation States, that goal has been achieved. The end result of this chaos will be these previously stable Nation Sunni States will become controlled by Sunni Terrorist organizations. So the Russians do have a point. The region would have been far better off without the Arab Spring.
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