US, Russian interests collide in Syria

Why is Syria important for Russia and the United States? The answer will depend on who you speak to. It is a story of competing interests, including, but not limited to, security. Economics is involved and so is geopolitics. Put simply, Syria is at the intersection of big power rivalry and it manifests itself in proxy wars, self-preservation and perpetuation, subliminal messaging at best and skulduggery at worst.

For Russia, Syria poses a binary choice: Either to let an embattled President Bashar Al-Assad go, which will precipitate the beginning of the end of Russia's naval presence at Tartus, or to help him to stay on, which will ensure the following: One, continuation of the sale of Russian arms worth millions of dollars to the Assad regime; two, send out the unambiguous message that Russia will not brook military adventurism by the US in Syria that might affect Russia's permanent interests in the region; and three, that the American policy of effecting regime-changes might cause further instability in an already fragile region riven by sectarian tensions.

Maintaining a naval base at Tartus, which has a predominantly Alawite population (Assad is an Alawite), on the Mediterranean coast helps Russia to project power and service its naval fleet without having to navigate through the Bosphorus back to its Black Sea ports. Turkey, a NATO (North American Treaty Organisation) ally, controls the navigation through the Bosphorus Straits.

Regime change as a policy is anathema for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who views American interventions in the region, most recently during the so-called Arab Spring, with distrust. Russia believes that this policy has only aggravated, not ameliorated, the situation in some of the countries in the region, most notably Libya, Egypt and Yemen, fuelling anxieties in some capitals in the region and beyond.

For Putin, Syria also helps to divert the attention from domestic politics and the situation obtaining in Ukraine. It also reinforces Russia's preeminent role in Syria and the wider region.

The view from Washington stands in sharp contrast to Putin's and Russia's, which is only to be expected. The predominant narrative in the US is that with Putin at the helm, the contemporary US-Russia relations have brought back memories of the Cold War. Putin is seen as a despotic, authoritarian ruler who is pursuing an assertive and muscular foreign policy.

Syria is important for the US if only to reassure its allies in the region that the US remains committed to working with them to maintain the balance of power in the region. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, a staunch US ally, are wary of the Russian and Iranian interests converging in Syria. Although President Barack Obama has sought to project the US intervention on Syria as a fight against the so-called Islamic State, a US- Russia proxy war -- a remnant of the Cold War -- is hard to miss.

The influx of more than four million refugees from Syria into mainland Europe via Turkey, another NATO ally, further compounds matters for the US and its European partners. Of equal concern for the US is Russia's veto in the United Nations Security Council, which puts paid to American hopes of pushing any resolution directed against Syria.