Monday, September 8, 2014

Ukraine: The Crisis Diplomacy Performance

Political and military options that Russia chose in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, provided the ability to predict the Russian choices in the Ukraine's crisis for the other parties.The two options of recognizing the result of the referendum in East Ukraine as well as the option of entering Russian forces to the territories occupied by the pro-Russian militants were available after recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk by Moscow. Both of these options were implemented on Georgia, and Russia has been able to skillfully separate Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. But now, as the leader of the militants in East Ukraine is not calling for the secession from the territory of Ukraine, it can be concluded that Moscow has entirely lost its chance to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and therefore any entrance of Russian military to this area means the same as military aggression against Ukraine.
But what changed the result of the game in Ukraine has probably been the priority of the issue of Syria for Moscow. Since the Presidential elections in Syria was taking place in a close distance to the referendum in East Ukraine, the possibility of forming a deal with Russia over the Syria was create at that point of time.
The deal was simple: military branch of the opponents of Bashar al-Assad leave the city of Homs and in return Russia stops supporting the pro-Russians militants.
At first, the opponents of Bashar al-Assad left Homs and John Kerry rejected the leader of Bashar al-Assad's opponents request to send weapons to them, and then the Russian military forces withdrew from the Ukraine borders and Vladimir Putin urged the East Ukrainian separatists to delay the referendum.
But about the destiny of gambling on Syria, we must admit that the White House has been the hidden winner of the game. Lack of reaction by Damascus on the recent Israel-Gaza conflict and even the lack of Bashar al-Assad's verbal support for Gaza despite his former anti-Israel stances and despite supports of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian Civil War in favor of Bashar al-Assad indicate that new Syria is created.

No comments:

Post a Comment