Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with senior government officials at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015. Russian military jets carried out airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria on Wednesday for the first time, after President Vladimir Putin received parliamentary approval to send Russian troops to Syria. (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)Alexei Nikolsky/The Associated Press
Any tenuous hope that the United States and Russia could constructively collaborate in Syria seemed to vanish when Russia announced – with an hour's notice to Washington – that it was starting air strikes. The target was claimed to be the Islamic State, but President Vladimir Putin's airplanes were in fact attacking other parts of Syria, not held either by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad or IS. Instead, they appeared to be hitting areas where the non-IS opposition is strong. Much of that opposition is tied to the West's allies in the region, and not to IS.
John Kerry, the American Secretary of State, had said shortly before the air strikes that, if the Russians did what they have now done, it would be of "grave concern."
It's quite likely that the Russians have written off what's now IS territory – or at least left it to Iran, Iraq, the Kurds and the West to deal with IS. Russia has some soldiers on the ground in Syria (while pretending it has none at all), but it recognizes that it would not fare well if it tried to occupy Syrian territory. The Russians have vivid memories of getting bogged down in Afghanistan – much like similar American experiences in recent decades.
So the air warfare strategies waged by the great powers are operating almost in parallel, and may be equally ineffective.
Mr. Putin has no great love for Mr. al-Assad, but he apparently fears losing Russia's footholds on (or near) the Mediterranean coast – at Tartus and Latakia – if there is any change of government in Damascus. It's an understandable but shortsighted view.
The antipathy between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin is entirely natural, but the interests or Russia and the West could still converge. Co-operation is possible. The only hope of forming a broad coalition in Syria opposed to the truly toxic jihadism of the so-called Islamic State lies in the retirement of Mr. al-Assad and his family – but with elements of the existing secularist Baathist regime and a range of more or less moderate Islamists.
That's difficult, but still not impossible.