'No
biting the bear's sensitive parts' By John Helmer
MOSCOW - In the Kremlin
corridors under the new management, it is
generally acknowledged that one of the stupidest
things former president (now premier) Dmitry
Medvedev ever did was to order Russia's
representative on the United Nations Security
Council to abstain from the vote and veto of the
no-fly zone resolution aimed at the Muammar
Gaddafi regime in Libya.
That was on March
17, 2010. Russian intelligence services already
knew that United States and British submarines
were in place under the surface of the
Mediterranean, ready to fire missiles to start a
war that was intended to end in Gaddafi's death.
It did.
A year later in 2011, when the
campaign for Russia's parliamentary elections and
the presidential succession was underway, that
abstention almost ended in the death of
Medvedev's chances to
stay under now President Vladimir Putin's
protection.
He didn't get the nod for a
second term as president, but as prime minister he
has survived in more lively shape than Gaddafi.
However, Russian officials are now
unanimous that the ill-fated effort by a Russian
leader to allow a war of military intervention and
regime change by the US and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, funded by
Arab sheikhdoms, should never be repeated.
No matter what Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad does, Russian policy is not so much to
protect him, his family, the Alawite community, or
his army, as to prevent rival European and Arab
powers, plus Turkey, from overthrowing the Syrian
regime under camouflage of a humanitarian crusade.
Accordingly, Russian sand-bagging is
protecting the maritime traffic moving civil and
military cargoes into Syrian ports. But at the
Ministry of Transport in Moscow, as well as among
sources in the Black and Azov Sea ports loading
vessels bound for Syria, there is reluctance to
discuss the shipping movements, as well as refusal
publicly to acknowledge efforts by the Turks and
the Syrian opposition to intercept the Russian
cargoes at sea.
The case of the light
cargo carrier Atlantic Cruiser indicates
how closely the Turks are working with Western
intelligence agencies to harass Syria-bound ship
movements.
The German-owned,
Antigua-flagged vessel was reported as having been
intercepted on April 18 by Turkish navy vessels
off the port of Iskenderun (in Turkey), possibly
in Cypriot, Syrian or international waters.
It was then escorted into Iskenderun,
where the cargo hatches were opened and inspected.
The publicity that followed claimed Syrian
opposition groups had detected Iranian arms being
loaded aboard the Atlantic Cruiser in
Djibouti.
This remarkable piece of
detection was not substantiated by the Turkish
inspectors. Instead, according to Saudi and
Turkish press reports, they found general cargo,
including explosives consigned to Turkish
coal-mining companies, and Indian-made parts for a
Syrian electricity plant.
To Yevgeny
Satanovsky, president of the academic Institute of
the Middle East in Moscow, the Kremlin strategy is
not knee-jerk reaction:
Russian policy in the Middle East is
not always reacting to that of the US, while
Syria does not necessarily face an American
threat. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are more likely
to intervene. However, despite all the
difficulty of Bashar Assad's relationship with
the people of Syria, everyone should just leave
it as it is, for the safety of the whole region.
Israel is really skeptical of Assad, but it
doesn't want to destabilize the situation by
toppling his government, as it realizes the
possible outcome. Nobody wants another
Al-Qaeda-like outrage. Russia should not perform
any military activities there, unlike the USSR,
which wasted dozens of billions of dollars and
still had to withdraw. It's good that today's
Russia, run by businessmen, is clear of
ideology, and it is pragmatic about its
expenditures.
The latest Russian
customs data on Moscow's trade with Damascus
indicate that the biggest Russian exports are
diesel, gas oil and other petroleum products,
followed by grain. Most of these cargoes are
loaded at Novorossiysk or Tuapse ports on the
Black Sea. A source at Tuapse told Fairplay, "If
there are any restrictions, they are not in the
port."
United States and European Union
sanctions now prevent Syria from buying fuel from
many of the neighboring states for domestic
heating and for operating motorized military
equipment. That still leaves Russia, Iraq and Iran
to supply Syria with what it needs.
Western media claim that Russia is doing
no more than protecting commercial interests in
Syria are missing the point. Trade turnover
between the two countries is small, and was
dwindling before the recent troubles began over a
year ago.
In 2008, Russia's two-way
turnover amounted to US$1.94 billion; in 2009,
$1.14 billion; in 2010, $1.12 billion. In order of
magnitude, exporters to Syria start with Saudi
Arabia, with 12% of the market; China with 9%;
Russia with 7.5%; and Italy, Egypt and the United
Arab Emirates with around 5% each. But these
numbers don't include the arms and defense trade.
During the Soviet period, Syria ran up a
debt to Moscow for arms of more than $13 billion.
In 2005, $10 billion of that was written off on
condition Damascus kept buying new arms from
Moscow. The current arms order book is generally
reported as worth about $3.5 billion. With enemies
of long standing on each one of Syria's land
borders, it is perfectly obvious that Syria must
now depend on the sea for its lifeline. It is
obvious too that the Kremlin intends to remind
everyone that it should stay open.
Promised deliveries from Russia include
the Bastion coastal missile system equipped with
the Yakhont supersonic cruise missile for
attacking ships as large as aircraft carriers. The
range of the Yakhont is 300 kilometers.
According to a presentation a year ago by
Igor Korotchenko, editor of National Defense
magazine in Moscow, one of the operational
purposes of the Bastion system is to protect the
Russian navy squadron at Tartus (in Syria), the
base itself, and the coastline 300 kilometers to
north and south - that's the entire Syrian
waterfront.
Russia's naval commander
Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said in August of 2010
that by this year the Tartus naval base would be
able to accommodate cruisers and aircraft carriers
for as long as the Kremlin wanted to deploy them
there. According to Korotchenko, "To speak
plainly, modern shipborne air defenses cannot
intercept such missiles."
The Russian
Association of Shipowners declines to comment on
what they know of interference by the Turks or
others with Russian cargoes bound for Syria.
Novorossiysk Commercial Seaport Company also
prefers to stay mum.
Georgy Polyakov,
spokesman for the Russian-Syrian Business Council,
told Asia Times Online, "Taking into account the
current situation in Syria, more detailed
information on the bilateral Russian-Syrian
relations should be given by the Ministry of
Economic Development of Russia, as the responsible
agency." The ministry refuses to respond to
questions.
Satanovsky, the leading
academic expert on Syria in Moscow, calls the
situation in the country senseless.
"Russian-Syrian relations are the prerogative of
the Russian leadership. Any pressure [on them] is
perceived as interference in internal affairs.
Russia is resisting very hard. All this is at the
level of conversations and press reports, to which
the Russian side pays no attention. But that's
like the bear who pays no attention to the hamster
trying to attack him, unless he bites the bear's
sensitive parts. Remember what happened to
[Georgian president Mikheil] Saakashvili."
John Helmer has been a
Moscow-based correspondent since 1989,
specializing in the coverage of Russian
business.
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