This week Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, is travelling to London for talks with William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary. The two sides are close on almost every aspect of where they would like progress to be made but have between them an impasse. The Russians see the post cold war West as meddling and imperial, with a lust for regime change brought about by force, either directly or through proxies. Britain sees Russia as difficult on purpose and unprincipled in backing President Assad, once considered moderate and restrained, now condemned as a tyrant. Assad has become the sticking point preventing compromise over Syria.
This blog makes no secret of its opposition to British foreign policy, which it regards as lacking in strategic focus for many years past and a complete failure since 9/11. In the regime change department Iraq was a disaster, Afghanistan is a mess and has been a complete waste of British lives and money and Libya is not fulfilling the initial promise at the fall of Gaddafi. Relations with Europe are confused and Cameron’s proposals for a new relationship with the organisation of which we are a member and transact half our trade, confusing.
Our refusal to allow talks to include the government in power, i.e. Assad, at the very beginning of the Syria crisis is the single biggest factor that drove the protest from peace to violence, then to armed groups, moving on to civil war leading to a collapsing state. The suffering of the innocent people of Syria, most of whom support neither one side or the other and just want peace and security gets worse week by week. There is now not just a humanitarian disaster but one spinning out of control.
It is one of the oldest tricks of statecraft to set pre-conditions to negotiations which knowingly cannot be met in order to avoid talking. Having refused to talk to Assad, Britain and its allies now find themselves supporting a mish -mash grouping of opposition fighters of obscure intention, many of whom will be at each others throats as soon as Assad falls, and among whom Al Qaeda, the West’s arch enemy, is a key player. It is small wonder that Mr. Lavrov sticks to his point of principle that outside powers cannot dictate the detail of internal governance.
Russia is Europe’s natural ally. An astute foreign policy would recognise that without Russia, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler would have won their wars. It would also note that without Russian resources of coal, oil and gas, the lights of Europe would go out, people would freeze in their homes and few would be able to afford to run cars. Europe needs the Russians more than it needs the US, which is ever more focused towards, and financially dependent on, Asia. Such thoughts might help William Hague to seek a compromise with Mr Lavrov. Nothing else will offer any hope of a swift end to the appalling events in Syria.