Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise announcement to withdraw most Russian war planes and personnel from Syria has left the public in the dark about his motives, raising troubling questions about whether the move will provide an opening for the U.S., Turkey and their Gulf allies to resume their drive towards regime change in Damascus.
Under the terms of the cessation of hostilities, in place for nearly two weeks, Russia could continue to strike al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State as well as provide air cover to the Syrian Arab Army on the ground against these terrorist forces.
More than five months of Russian airstrikes and Russia's reconstitution of the Syrian Army dramatically turned the war in President Bashar al-Assad's favor and has left the jihadists in disarray.
But the liberation of Aleppo was not yet complete. Though the Syrian army reportedly had entered Palmyra and reached near Raqqa, the Islamic State capital, the terrorist group has not been destroyed.
The loss of territory and Russia's destruction of much of their oil infrastructure and supply lines to Turkey forced IS to cut its fighters' salaries, spurring increasing numbers of defections, including by a man from Alexandria, Virginia on Monday.
It is curious then that Russia, having the extremists on the ropes, would withdraw before the mission was accomplished--a mission to destroy terrorism in Syria announced by President Putin at the UN General Assembly in September.
Putin's move has led to widespread speculation. Perhaps he has made a deal with the U.S., a grand bargain of sorts. Maybe Washington has offered a major concession on Ukraine, something President Barack Obama may gladly concede given what a disaster the U.S. adventure in that country has become.
Perhaps in a game of chicken with Obama, Putin blinked. The U.S. has wanted Russia out of the Syrian theater the moment it entered.
With Russia yielding the Syrian skies will the U.S. set up a no-fly zone as Turkey (and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) has desperately wanted?
Will Saudi and Turkish forces invade Syria to secure a partitioned state in eastern Syria --the so-called Plan B--through which they can run a natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey on land now held by the Saudi-Turkish IS proxies? Such a pipeline providing natural gas to Europe would directly undercut Russia, which now provides the majority of gas to the continent.
Some analysts believe the entire Syrian war was instigated when Assad in 2009 rejected a Qatari-Turkish-Saudi proposed gas line through Syrian territory. Two years later those three countries took advantage of a popular uprising to send in foreign jihadists to get rid of Assad. It turned out to be a lot more difficult than they imagined, with the war now five years old and Assad still in power.
With the gains made by the Russian-backed Syrian military in the past five months, a desperate Saudi Arabia and Turkey were poised to invade Syria to at least set up such an eastern Syrian state, if not try to drive towards Damascus to overthrow Assad. Both Ankara and Riyadh said they wouldn't invade without U.S. ground forces leading these purveyors of extremism. Such an intervention would have risked a direct U.S. confrontation with nuclear armed Russia, with all that implies.
With Russia still in the skies, President Barack Obama apparently rejected the Saudi-Turkish invasion plea. But now that the Russian deterrent will be gone, Turkish and Saudi appetites might be whetted.
Following the Russian withdrawal, if Obama still continues to defy his neoconservative advisers who want to overthrow Assad even at the cost of a U.S.-led invasion, what about the next occupant of the White House?
At a Republican debate last week, three of the four candidates said they would support between 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq, supposedly to fight the Islamic State. Once on the ground, they could easily make a detour towards Damascus.
Curiously, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the last days offered to divide the task of defeating IS by inviting the U.S. to take Raqqa, an offer the US refused. It is not at all clear why Russia would want the U.S. to control the IS capital unless Moscow is pushing a federal Syria, which it has publicly supported. Assad has apparently also agreed.
Not quite a partition, a federal Syria could consist of an eastern province centered on Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, now under IS control; a Kurdish province in the north, and an Alawite-Christian rump Syria, from Damascus to Aleppo.
Will the U.S., and its Gulf allies agree to this compromise or take the opening to invade? Would Turkey accepted a federal Kurdish state on its borders?
A federation would retain power for the central government, something the Turks and Gulf Arabs would not easily accept. If they can't have Assad's head they might go for an independent Sunni state in the east--a different creature than a federal state.
An invasion to grab such a state would bring more bloodshed and possibly Russia back into the conflict. A federation instead can be set up through negotiation--and indeed the U.S. and Russia may have already agreed on this. It would be up to the U.S. to bring the Gulf and its insurgents along.
These will be the hottest topics at U.N. peace talks that have resumed in Geneva. Will the talks yield a peace deal in which Assad stays at least six more months until a transitional government takes over, writes a new constitution and 18 months from now holds a general election over a Federal Syria?
The Saudi-led opposition still wants Assad to go immediately, something the U.S., Russia and the U.N. reject. If the rebels can be brought around, the talks might go somewhere.
Putin says the Russian intervention was a success because it stabilized the government and made a diplomatic solution possible.
That remains to be determined.
