/ world today news/ US President Barack Obama did not know that the State Department had asked Bulgaria and Greece to close their skies to Russian transport flights, and when he found out, he was upset that the country’s foreign policy department had started to act without sufficient coordination with other parts of the administration.
The White House has yet to take a final position on Russian military aid to Bashar al-Assad and has called a meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday to discuss what the plan would be to respond to apparent signs that the Russians are building up their air base near Latakia in Syria. This is according to Bloomberg columnist Josh Rogin, citing two sources. For its text in the “Declassified” column, it is explicitly noted that it may not coincide with the agency’s editorial position.
Obama unhappy that Bulgaria stopped Russian planes?
Photo: Reuters
Intelligence has continuously informed the president that Russia plans to build its base near Syria’s largest port city, where it will deploy its MiG-31s and Su-25s in the coming days or weeks to strike targets in the country. Some of the equipment has already arrived, including mobile air traffic control towers, aircraft maintenance supplies and prefabricated housing for hundreds of troops.
But the administration in Washington has not yet decided how to approach this development, Rogin claims. Some of the people in the White House are in favor of stopping the Russians in Syria, while others are in favor of cooperation in the fight against the “Islamic State”, adds the author.
The first group believed that military cooperation with the Russians was tantamount to an admission that the US position against Assad remaining in power had failed and that Russian planes would attack the opposition under the guise of action against the Islamists. “The intentions of the Russians are to keep Assad in power, not to fight the Islamic State. Now they have taken down their cards,” said an administration source.
The representatives of the second group did not want to further deteriorate relations with Moscow and seriously considered accepting the Russian base as a fait accompli, then coordinating the flights with the operations in northern Syria of the US-led coalition.
On Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke for the second time in less than a month with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, about Russia’s actions in Syria. A person familiar with the content of the conversation says that he insisted on stopping the accumulation of equipment, but the answer was that Moscow is not doing anything wrong and support for Damascus will continue, “Dnevnik” reports.
This was seen as a refusal by the Russians to support Kerry’s efforts to restart the political process to resolve the crisis discussed in August with Lavrov and the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia.
The State Department began attempts to limit Russian actions by appealing to Sofia and Athens to deny overflight permits to cargo planes. But Obama did not know this in advance and was disappointed that the department did not act more transparently and in better coordination with other agencies in Washington.
On Tuesday, however, a State Department representative said that any such actions were consistent with the activities of the entire administration.
The spat in Washington was partly due to President Vladimir Putin’s phone call with Obama in July, and the US leader said Moscow was beginning to distance itself from the embattled Assad. But then Putin began to avoid serious talks with the US about a diplomatic solution, and while gathering equipment near Latakia talked about a possible Assad coalition with the “robust” Syrian opposition.
Putin arrives in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where he is expected to address the fight against terrorism, and the Obama administration fears it has no real leverage to respond to Russian actions, Rogin said. Even if he does not accept the presence of a Russian Air Force base in Syria, there is not much President Obama can do.
Among the possible responses are the imposition of new sanctions against Russia (but it is not at all certain that Europe will join), a warning that the base could be attacked by the opposition (but the Russians could double their military contingent to protect it), or an attempt to close the eastern air corridor to Syria as well (but there are no guarantees that Iraq will agree to stand up to Putin and Iran).
Washington may not prevent the emergence of a Russian base, but it should not cooperate with it, because this will be perceived as preserving Assad, and thus the US will lose its influence over the Syrian opposition.
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