How to counter Putin in Syria?

By John B. Quigley

President Obama is right to proceed with caution in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's latest moves in Syria.

Russia has been moving fighter aircraft to a military base on Syria's Mediterranean coast, which remains under the control of brutal President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia has also begun flying reconnaissance aircraft in support of Syrian government military operations. Obama quizzed Putin on Russia's aims when they met at the United Nations last week. In his address to the General Assembly, Obama said he is willing to work with Russia to find solutions in Syria.

And Secretary of State John Kerry has said we welcome a role for Russian forces if the focus, as Putin affirms, is combating the Islamic State.

"But if what they're doing is, in fact, propping up the Assad regime," John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said, "then that's an entirely different issue altogether, because it is the Assad regime that has been a magnet for extremists inside Syria."

This response reveals the dilemma for Obama. Russia's two aims are intertwined. Russia helps Syria fight the Islamic State, but is also protecting Assad from being overthrown. But then, so are we. By fighting the Islamic State as we are, we too are protecting Assad.

In a telephone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Kerry excluded any role for Assad in a political solution for Syria. The State Department reported that Kerry "reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to fight [the Islamic State] with a coalition of more than 60 countries, of which Assad could never be a credible member."

This U.S. position - that Assad has no role in discussions about a transition of power in Syria - puts us at odds not only with Russia, but with the United Nations and the European Union.

Both see a role for Assad, even as they hope he can be eased from power. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura views Assad as "part of the solution." EU foreign relations coordinator Federica Mogherini does not see Assad as president in the long term, but, like de Mistura, she hopes for a negotiated settlement, with Assad sitting at the table.

The two presidents clashed in their U.N. speeches, Obama castigating Assad, but Putin casting him as a source of stability and a bulwark against chaos.

Obama has set out no clear approach that would lead to a stable political order in Syria. Our efforts at supporting the so-called moderate opposition have floundered.

Putin is saying that the thrust of Russian military involvement is to counter the Islamic State. So Russia is putting itself on our side to that extent. Our own efforts against the group have not been effective so far, so Russia's help may benefit our cause.

Past Russian policy in Syria has not always been against U.S. interests. When Obama announced in 2013 that he would launch air strikes over Syria's use of chemical weapons, he met an avalanche of protest in Congress.

To Obama's aid came Putin, proposing that Syria be persuaded to destroy its chemical weapons. The Russian leader provided Obama with a welcome way out of an impasse.

Caution is counseled as well by our own past role in regard to democratic rule in Syria. In 1957, a government was in place in Syria that President Dwight Eisenhower saw as too cozy with Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom Eisenhower viewed as a threat to the West. So the CIA paid Syrian military officers to overthrow the Syrian government.

It was not the CIA's finest hour. The plot unraveled, and three U.S. diplomats who conveyed the cash were expelled from Syria.

When the Russian moves in Syria are seen in the context of the overall situation there, Obama's low-key response is probably the wisest.

John B. Quigley is a distinguished professor of law at Ohio State University. quigley.2@osu.edu