Earlier this week news reports broke that Putin’s Russia had upped the ante from merely enabling the carnage in Syria through cynical obstruction to actively aiding it as a Marine squad of Russian “anti-terror troops” arrived at Tartus, home to Russia’s only remaining foreign naval base. The news should not come as a shock to anyone who’s been paying attention, given that independent Russian journalists on the ground have now for some time been reporting that groups associated with Russian special forces have been operating in the country as “volunteers” in support of the Assad regime, and the fact that Russia’s defense minister has even acknowledged the presence of “military and technical advisors.”
All of this has coincided with increased domestic unrest in Russia and the largest mass protests since the initial shocks of the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, though the events on Russia’s domestic and foreign fronts can hardly be called a coincidence. There is of course the fact that the Russian demonstrations are themselves in many ways a late addition to the same global wave of mutually inspired protests of which Syria has now become the flashpoint. Both are also linked in larger ways to the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse. But a video being circulated among the Russian-speaking Internet in which Abd Al-Jalil Said, former press secretary for the Syrian Mufti, berates Vycheslav Matuzov, chairman of the Russian Friendship Society with Arab Countries, suggests the possibility of a more insidious and devastating connection.
(Partial English translation here.)
There are so many juicy ironies and contradictions to latch onto here, from the spectacle of Russia’s feeble excuse for a democracy being taken to task by an Islamic theocrat, to the instantly quotable: “Arab streets are full of Russian prostitutes, not Russian products.” And it does bear noting that the Middle East Media Research Institute is well-known for furthering its far-right “pro-Israel” agenda by selectively highlighting only the most extreme jihadist views from Arab media. But all of that notwithstanding, the threat made by Said sounds too familiar to brush off:
“…but we know that your military base, your interests, your people, your experts will be targets of the Free Syrian Army […] Russians will be targets for attack in Syria, wherever they may be. Bashar Assad wants Moscow’s support? With Allah’s help we will send him to you so you can embalm him in the Kremlin next to Stalin.”
This threat, along with Said’s immediate dismissal of the Russian apparatchick‘s pathetic attempt to divert the debate by invoking the spectres of Condoleeza Rice and George W. Bush, signals that Russia may be well on its way to taking America’s place as the hated imperialist meddler in the Muslim world – a title that it has, of course, held previously. And with that title comes the prize that was last awarded to the US over a decade ago – terrorist blowback, first abroad and then, more famously, at home.
“Why would Putin be so stupid as to risk terrorist attacks on Russian interests just to support a failing authoritarian regime?” one might ask. What does he gain? Russian firms and business interests have already been shut out of Libyan reconstruction projects in retaliation for their similar obstruction during the recent civil war. Russia derives little economic benefit from its alliance with Assad, and their continued support of him alienates them from the Arab League as well. Nor should one for a second entertain the notion that Russia’s government truly believes in either “protecting national sovereignty”, given how willing it is to meddle in the affairs of its former republics, or “containing radical Islam”, given their continued support of Iran and the fact that the Assad regime is itself a main sponsor of groups like Hezbollah.
But those asking what advantage, economic or otherwise, Putin’s government would gain in exchange for the increased risk of terrorist retaliation are asking the wrong question. For the right question and its corresponding answer, one only has to look back to 2004’s Beslan hostage crisis and its aftermath, which saw the elimination of elections for provincial leaders, a tightening of the security apparatus, and the consolidation of government control over the media, all with vast approval from the Russian populace. Those who are so disposed may also recall a similar pattern that had played out in another country with world power status some three years earlier.
In recent months, the Russian blogosphere has been awash with polemics and op-eds by the older liberal intellegentsia, delivered with that uniquely Russian blend of literary eloquence and hyperbolic misanthropy, and denouncing not only Russia’s government, but the majority of its population, its history, and its very cultural core as hopelessly violent, corrupt, and addicted to tyranny. It is ironic that these come at just the same time that a new class of young, urban-dwelling, internet-savvy, and freedom-minded Russians has emerged to challenge this paradigm. But if the Kremlin’s machinations bring down destruction upon its people, and those masses respond as they have before by eagerly devouring the opiate of authoritarian nationalism, my friends will lose the battle for Russia’s soul, and the elder cynics will have been proven right.
