Red Riding Hood in the forest and Big Bad Wolf hurrying to swallow grandmother and lacing on her big homey cotton bonnet, that is what came to mind after reading Putin’s disingenuous call to return to civilized diplomacy and to respect divinely blessed equality dans la différence. Global capitalism is a rough neighborhood. In his appeal to international law and stability, he is sailing downwind: many in the US are questioning the legality and ethics of a limited, unilateral act of war on a sovereign nation, there is on-going obstructionism at all levels, plus war fatigue, and finally there is the fact that the Obama administration inherited the wreck of the Bush Middle East policy regarding Iran and Iraq. Useful image burnishing by Putin and playing the clock.
He is all too quick to say that “Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria.” It may be becoming true but this was not the case two years ago, as Juan Cole explains in his review of basic facts about Syria (Top Ten Things Americans need to Know about Syria if they’re going to Threaten to Bomb).
Number 4 is about the economic and social reasons for the conflict. I quote:
The Syrian revolution and civil war did not begin as primarily sectarian. It is to some extent a class struggle. High population growth rates and economic stagnation made the state unable to provide jobs to a burgeoning youth population. Droughts and the bad effects of global warming also created a water crisis that harmed farmers and pushed youth off the farms into city slums where, after the 2008 world crash, there were no jobs. The big protests in 2011 originated in the slums around the cities in the center of the country, where young men who had moved there for work from the countryside found themselves locked into long-term unemployment. The governmental and business elite in Damascus benefits from the regime and has mostly remained loyal or neutral, whether they are Sunnis or Alawites. About half of the large northern city of Aleppo is still with the regime, as well. Because the upper ranks of the ruling Baath Party are disproportionately dominated by the Alawite minority, and because so many discontented youth in the cities of the center are Sunni, the conflict took on a sectarian tinge. But its underpinnings are economic.
It is also rich for Putin to say “force has proved ineffective and pointless.” Today’s Kremlin politics seems guided by the use of force rather than true sharing of power. The NYT‘s title for the Putin opinion piece misnames it as A Plea for Caution from Russia. This appeal to caution is garnishing for a stalemate that means continued violence in Syria at the hands of the Russia-supported government and the now-competing rebel factions.