Vladimir Putin's initiative calling for the destruction of the Bashar al-Assad regime's chemical weapons both complicates and clarifies the dilemmas created by the failed Arab Spring. Good governance is impossible, no matter how justified those taking arms may be, as long as authoritarianism is "bred in the bone."
Such is Syria, a tyranny supported by traditionally at-risk minorities, particularly the Alawites but also Christians, Druze, Shia and Kurds, who accepted Mr. Assad's Baath party because it offered them both secularism and security, albeit at the cost of political and individual freedom. The Sunni majority accepted this situation literally at gunpoint, although that community's economic elite came to see benefit, as political acquiescence brought material reward. Finally, with revolution in the air, the dam burst but the regime fought back, creating a civil war in which cruelty, death, exile and extremism became bywords.
The conflict, however, did not confine itself to Syria, a continuing consequence of the borders drawn by the imperial powers after the First World War that took no account of the religion, language, culture or ethnicity and defining characteristics of the Arab peoples. It is these realities, not citizenship, that have the first call on loyalty. They are the sustaining badges of self, straddling and crisscrossing state borders: The Syrian crisis bleeds into an ethnically fractured Lebanon; Lebanese Hezbollah fights in Syria; Shia dominated Iraq becomes a conduit for Iranian arms to the Assad regime; Sunni jihadists move across borders regardless of nationality; Iran struggles to maintain the so-called "Shia Crescent." The list seems unending.
A third tier of conflict invariably emerges. That played out on a global scale, drawing in the international community, most critically the United States and Russia, in a complicated struggle for power, influence and values not only in the Middle East but globally. We witness tortured debates over what should be done – from arming the opposition, to boots on the ground, to no fly zones, to a seemingly infinite number of air war scenarios, none of which are viable in themselves. Assertive action is constrained by the inability of UN Security Council members to reach consensus enabling the seemingly least bad option: an air strike limited to Syrian command and control centres.
The U.S. administration has found itself in an unenviable position, having promised severe consequences more than a year ago if chemical weapons were used, but failing to react when over the subsequent months they were deployed. When they were used again this August, Barack Obama decided he had to act. Having drawn a red line, he could not afford to see the Syrians cross it again with impunity. Failure to act, even symbolically, would undercut global American interests, lessening its credibility and undercutting its mythic "exceptionalism."
If there were to be no consequences for chemical weapons use, might not Tehran conclude it could develop nuclear weaponry without peril? Would Beijing conclude its struggle for influence in South Asia was without risk? Would the Eastern Europeans feel more vulnerable in the face of Russian ambition? How would the Saudis and Israelis react if Washington's commitments were seen to mean little when the going got tough? Faced with these challenges, an American air strike however limited seemed inevitable, Security Council endorsement or not; popularity among the American public or not.
Then Mr. Putin pulled off a stunning coup, jumping on U.S. State Secretary John Kerry's grandiloquent statement that the only way Syria could avoid attack would be the dismantlement and complete destruction of its chemical arsenal. The Russians seized on this as an opportunity to endorse a course that Mr. Kerry had intended only as a rhetorical device, thereby denying the administration the legitimacy Mr. Obama needed to sign off to the military. The Russians moved beyond the role of recalcitrant to that of constructive initiator, earning widespread goodwill even if there was backbiting by a disappointed Washington already warring with a highly partisan Congress.
Russia will use its newfound legitimacy to portray itself as equal to the United States, despite its economic and political limitations. Moscow will likely become more assertive, across the board, as long as this new balance endures, particularly with the states on its periphery. Without the hard edge that military power alone conveys, Mr. Putin may do his best to ensure that the crisis continues as long as possible. Indeed the logistics of international verification in the midst of civil war coupled with a reluctant Mr. Assad are daunting. Whether the destruction exercise succeeds or not, Russia will have nudged the power balance in its favor.
This three tiered "mushroom" effect was inevitable given the interconnectedness of the international system in which Mr. Assad's mishandling of demonstrations in a small Syrian town on the Jordanian border grew into a civil war, then a regional calamity and thereafter a great power confrontation. New relationships remain to be determined but there are no good outcomes in what will be a very murky future.
Michael Bell is the Paul Martin Senior Scholar in International Relations at the University of Windsor. He has served as Canada's ambassador to Jordan, to Egypt and to Israel.