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The U.S. Still Has No Incentives to Offer to End Russian Support for Assad

Mark Adomanis ably shoots down the idea that the U.S. could give Russia major incentives to abandon Assad: The limiting factor in this equation, as I’m sure Gabe knows, is American domestic politics. Barack Obama has been accused of being a quisling, a coward, and an idiot for the START treaty, a treaty that was […]

Mark Adomanis ably shoots down the idea that the U.S. could give Russia major incentives to abandon Assad:

The limiting factor in this equation, as I’m sure Gabe knows, is American domestic politics. Barack Obama has been accused of being a quisling, a coward, and an idiot for the START treaty, a treaty that was basically fair to both American and Russian interests and was the product of months upon months of patient high-level negotiations. Conservatives and Republicans hate the treaty: read Mitt Romney’s fevered denunciations of START if you think I’m being uncharitable. If they say those sorts of things about a good faith attempt to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, can you imagine what they would say about any of the trades Gabe is suggesting? The chorus of boos and shouts of “appeasement!” that would greet Obama were he to “sell out” Georgia to Russia in exchange for Moscow’s help in deposing Assad would be audible from space.

Indeed I would say that at this point in time the United States is basically incapable of making such “trades,” things that, once upon a time, were the bread and butter of great power politics.

Adomanis is right that it would not be politically possible for the administration to offer a “trade” of halting NATO expansion for the withdrawal of Russian support for Assad. I assume the preferred historical reference would be to Yalta. Other major powers are expected to sacrifice what Marco Rubio might call their “narrow national interests” for the sake of international consensus on various issues, but the same does not apply to U.S. policies, even when those policies have long since ceased to serve any discernible American interest. (NATO expansion is a good example of this.)

Opponents of the “reset” are only too happy to cite Russian support for Assad as “proof” of the failure of current Russia policy, but the reality is that they would attack any genuine concession made to Russia to acquire greater cooperation on Syria. We know this because this is what they have done in response to decisions designed to win Russian cooperation on Iran and Afghanistan. It doesn’t matter that the concession would be made in order to advance a goal that the very same critics of the “reset” seek. If Russia is satisfied with it, it’s wrong. Their thinking seems to be that Russia ought not support Assad, and Moscow ought to define its long-term interests in the way that inveterate Western critics of Russian foreign policy do and then act accordingly. Until Russia does what it “ought” to do, there should be no “rewards” to Russia. Of course, if Russia started defining its long-term interests this way, it would never want any of the “rewards” that the U.S. might offer.

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