“The Kremlin will give up Assad”

Drawing by Natalia Mikhailenko for Kommersant

An unforeseen twist in the Syria crisis concerning the future of President Bashar al-Assad is looming, according to Russia’s political and business daily Kommersant.

"We aren't defending Assad," an unidentified Kremlin source told Kommersant earlier this week. "The president of Syria has missed his chance. The likelihood of him remaining in power is slim, about 10 percent."

On Thursday, July 5, Kommersant also published a comment by Konstantin von Eggert surprisingly titled, “The Kremlin will give up Assad.”

Eggert is a commentator and host for radio Kommersant FM, Russia's first 24-hour news station. He also writes a weekly column for RIA Novosti. In the 1990s he was Diplomatic Correspondent for Izvestia and later the BBC Russian Service’s Moscow Bureau Editor.

Here is Eggert’s 405-word opinion piece published Thursday by Kommersant:

Russia has had it its way – there will be no Western military intervention or forced change of regime in Syria; however, the West also seems to have succeeded – Bashar Assad’s fate will soon become a bargaining chip in negotiating future settlements.

According to unnamed sources, Russian officials have admitted in private that the Syrian leader has missed the boat and his chances of remaining at the presidential Tishreen Palace in Damascus are slim. Yet Moscow wants him to delay stepping down as long as possible. Back in the spring, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that the Yemeni scenario for handover of power in Syria would suit Russia. In Yemen, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed over the reins to his vice president and retired with a personal security guarantee in his pocket. This scenario will not work in Syria – so much blood has been shed there that the Yemeni clashes will never ever match the Syrian civil war. Furthermore, there are many more religious groups in Syria than in Yemen.

The potential future leader of Syria will have to address two tasks that are virtually mutually exclusive – to retain the loyalty of the army that currently supports Assad and simultaneously dismantle the regime. There is no such man in the Syrian opposition at the moment. Assad, who has done his best to keep the Syrian political field barren, now says there is no one to negotiate with. But I guess that nature abhors a vacuum and so the opposition will find someone, while Assad, for his part, will likely eye Minsk as a possible destination. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has nothing to lose by offering asylum to Assad; he has already alienated half the world. The Kremlin, on the other hand, will not be willing to irritate the Arabs by offering the former dictator a new home.

The hardest thing to imagine is Vladimir Putin or Sergei Lavrov calling Assad and saying, “Pack your bags. There is nothing else we can do for you.” This will be the end of the special relationship between Moscow and Damascus, which was established 40 years ago during the first years of the presidency of Hafez Assad, the incumbent president’s father. Even if some of Russia’s interests in Syria should be protected by special accords, there will be new people arriving at the Damascus offices, without any Moscow numbers on speed dial on their phones.

Separately, Syrian opposition figures are meantime heading to Moscow this week for talks with Lavrov.

The Russian foreign minister will meet with delegates from the Syrian Democratic Forum tomorrow, Monday.

The Forum’s most prominent figures are Aref Dalila and Fayez Sara.

Lavrov is also set to hold talks with representatives of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the country's largest opposition group, on Wednesday.

SNC executive member George Sabra tells today’s edition of the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat: “It is hard to predict what will be the Russian positions during our visit to Moscow on the 11^th of July. But in discussing the situation in Syria, we will be emphasizing the Syrian regime is a thing of the past and they (Russians) need to concede this and start working for the transition to a democratic and multiparty state bereft of killings and deaths.”

He said the SNC group would be reiterating to Moscow that a transitional government should exclude Assad and his clique but bring together both oppositionists and loyalists. Referring to loyalists, he said Syrian army and Baath Party ranks include many nationalist figures opposed to the regime’s crackdown on its own people.

Commenting on the reports in Kommersant, Sabra said, “This is additional proof that Russian policy is evolving. Moscow is realizing Assad is the past. He is not part of the problem – he is the problem per se. I hope the (Moscow) policy shift won’t be long in coming…”

Lavrov in Damascus: Aye or Nay?

The three Wise Men (illustration storyboardtoys.com)

According to Christian tradition, three Wise Men from the East (named Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior) traveled to the manger where infant Jesus lay bearing ceremonial gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Today, two senior officials from Russia – Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and spymaster Mikhail Fradkov -- travelled to Damascus bearing “three gifts” to President Bashar al-Assad, according to a leading Lebanese political analyst.

Nicolas Nassif, whose news analysis makes the front-page lead of the pro-Assad Beirut daily al-Akhbar and is reproduced in Syria’s electronic news journal Champress, says Lavrov arrives in Damascus for talks with Assad “armed with three nays:

1. “No to foreign military intervention in Syria.
2. “No to Assad standing down.
3. “No to armed rebels gaining footholds anywhere in the country.”

However, Nassif adds, “Moscow insists on internal dialogue between Assad and his opponents. Moscow favors a decisive blitz against the armed insurgents. It wants them out of the equation. Otherwise, they would wreck the internal dialogue that Moscow is championing.”

This, according to Nassif, explains the major – but “phased” – Syrian army’s offensive, initiated on January 27, to flush out insurgents from the three hottest flashpoints: rural Damascus, Homs and Idlib. The army having regained control of rural Damascus already, its focus has now shifted to “Homs and Idlib, especially that they are respectively close to the borders with Lebanon and Turkey.”

George Solaj, columnist for the anti-Assad Lebanese daily al-Joumhouria, sees Assad receiving four cautions from Lavrov rather than gifts:

1. Russia can do no more for Syria; international pressure is mounting and so is the death toll.
2. Take advantage of the offer on the table: change the regime’s chain of command instead of the regime itself; stay on the sidelines after naming someone to agree serious and swift reforms with the opposition; then implement them pending new elections allowing voters to choose between the regime and its opponents.
3. Moscow would host the dialogue conference and ensure your personal and family safety and immunity from future prosecution.
4. The alternative is a multinational siege of Syria and the outbreak of civil war.

Lebanon’s famed pan-Arab political analyst Khairallah Khairallah, writing today for the first Arabic-language online newspaper Elaph, wonders how the “Russian sickman” can possibly treat his Syrian counterpart.

His piece reminds me of a folk proverb in Arabic: عصفور كفل زرزور والاثنين طيارين

It translates into: A bird pays a surety bond for a beetle; problem is both are winged.