Vladimir
Putin, the newly restored president of Russia, is visiting Britain for the
first time in seven years. And he’s over here not primarily for reasons of
diplomacy, but to see the Olympics.
That alone
tells you something about the state of his relations with the West.
Putin will
meet David Cameron today and the two leaders will certainly discuss Syria. The
Prime Minister will no doubt try to convince his guest that Russia’s continuing
support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime is futile and self-defeating, as well as
being immoral.
But my bet is
that this will continue to be the diplomatic equivalent of banging your head
against a brick wall.
Putin’s stance on Syria has ceased to be merely a calculation of national interest, based on the value of arms exports to Assad and the importance of his country as a base for Russian influence in the Middle East.
Instead, you
can sense how Russia’s position has become almost a matter of personal dignity
for Putin. In blunt terms, he thinks the West cheated him over Libya last year.
In his mind, Russia acted out of genuine humanitarian concern by allowing the
imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.
Then Britain
and France turned this into a de facto campaign of regime change that duly
overthrew Gaddafi.
What was
billed as a humanitarian intervention ended up with a convenient outcome that
favoured Western strategic interests. Russia’s then president, Dmitry Medvedev,
was supremely naïve to have believed otherwise. Or at least that’s how Putin
would see things.
That makes
him doubly determined to make sure that nothing similar takes place over Syria.
Putin thinks
that Russia was fooled once, and he will not allow that to happen again.
Would
anything lead him to reconsider?
The only
possibility I can imagine is that if events on the ground in Syria were to
become even more awful, with the fighting escalating to the point where Assad’s
downfall really was imminent. Then Russia would be confronted with the futility
of trying to stave off the absolutely inevitable.
Unless and
until that moment arrives, Putin will probably remain implacable.
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