https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/11/ties-bind-russia-iran-and-hezbollah-but-theyre-rip/
Syria has become the “sick man” of the Middle East, a territory laden with death and homelessness. In 2014 erstwhile president Barak Obama invited the Russians into the region to control the use of poison gas by their surrogate Bashar Assad. In 2015, as the Russians intervention expanded President Obama said this “is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire.” Senator McCain responded on the Senate floor that the policy of the Obama administration “replaced the risk of action with the perils of inaction.”
Today we can see the perils of inaction unfold. Russia is dominant over nearly half of Syria, within only a few months of the intervention, Russian presence had put an end to any serious attempt by backers of the rebels to topple the Assad regime.
Moreover, Russian leaders reached an accord with Turkey which had attempted to destabilize the regime and instead reached an alliance based on its active hostility to the Kurds. It can now be asserted that with these alterations in policy, almost all those countries that once backed the opposition now depend on Russia to salvage the situation for them in Syria. It is by consent that Russia is the “strong horse of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The idea that Russia would serve as the balance wheel against Iran when it also maintains a tenuous alliance demonstrates the belief it is a better guarantor of stability than the United States. However, the Russians have not displayed consistency. Jordan, the U.S., Lebanon hoped that Russia would depart from its alliance with Iran and allow for a hopeful vision of the future. That has not yet emerged. But the State Department continues to believe Russia can be drawn away from its ties to Iran and Hezbollah. This initiative drives the present Russian-U.S. negotiation in the area.
