The Assad visit to Moscow two days ago about which you have heard nothing: Iran’s Press TV
You may be forgiven for not having heard anything about the visit to Moscow of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, because neither Russian nor Syrian official sources published more than a photograph or two of the two leaders meeting and saying a few words to the press. You would know still less about what was discussed between them aside from some generalities. However, for Iran’s global broadcaster Press TV this was possibly a significant event for their neighborhood and they invited commentary, which I and one other invitee sought to provide.
https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130226
The visit was explained officially as marking the 80th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. That gave an aspect of normality to what was, in effect, anything but normal.
Indeed, the entire episode was carried out in the greatest secrecy. Assad flew in to Moscow late on Wednesday evening but the news of his visit was released only on Thursday morning, after he had already safely touched down in Damascus from his flight home. He is said to have spent two hours in direct conversation with President Putin, without any time lost to a formal dinner or other ceremonial distractions.
This was Assad’s first visit to Moscow since March 2023 and there surely was a lot for the two leaders to discuss face to face. As my fellow panelist on the Press TV program suggests, one item was surely the possibilities of arranging a three-way meeting with President Erdogan of Turkey, who is said to be ready to restore relations with Assad that were broken when Ankara chose to support the Islamist fighters against his government during the Syrian civil war back in 2015. And in theory that could take place when Putin makes his still unscheduled trip to Turkey later this summer.
However, I think the bigger subject on their agenda was Russian military assistance to Syria in the context of the present Israeli rampage in the neighborhood and most specifically with a view to improving Syria’s ineffective air defenses. On 3 June, Israel made yet another jet fighter attack near the Syrian city of Aleppo. Israeli attacks on Hezbollah arms caches in Syria and on supplies transiting Syria from Iran have been a regular occurrence going back to the civil war. But now, when there is a probability of Israel unleashing all out war on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military supplies passing through Syria to Lebanon assume critical importance for the Axis of Resistance.
Let us remember that Russian military aid to Syria in 2015 and 2016 saved the Damascus government from being overwhelmed by Islamic fighters that were supported by the United States and its allies. However, Russia, which maintained a naval base in Syrian Tartus and an air base in Khmeimin, has never intervened to stop Israel attacks on Syria that Jerusalem claimed were purely for Israeli defense. Clearly the time has come to help the Syrians protect their air space and their sovereignty. A further context is that Russian-Israeli relations have cooled substantially over Israeli support for Ukraine. Moreover, a higher profile of Russia in Syria would be intended to offset the growing U.S. naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, which Washington says is there to prevent an escalation of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, but objectively speaking, more likely to have the opposite effect.
Finally, it may well be that Russia is about to provide Assad or pro-Iranian militia in Syria with its powerful missiles and drones to raise the effectiveness of their attacks on the illegal U.S. military bases in Syria. This would be entirely in line with Vladimir Putin’s recent threats to engage in the same kind of proxy warfare against the USA that Washington is pursuing in the Ukrainian war against Russia.
Clearly, a two-hour meeting between presidents could not go into the specifics of Russia’s greater assistance to Damascus in the coming days. But it prepares the way for their respective generals to work out the details of who does what now.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024