by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] President of the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) Bashar al-Assad on May 19 took part in the summit of the League of Arab States (LAS) in Saudi Arabia, in Jeddah. The Syrian leader is participating for the first time since 2010.
On May 7, the foreign ministers of the Arab League member countries decided to return Syria to the organization after its exclusion in 2011, when the country was engulfed in a civil war with numerous victims.
For the head of the SAR, a visit to Jeddah, where he was warmly welcomed by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman , of course, can be seen as a diplomatic "triumph" that finally put an end to the isolation of Damascus and restored Assad's international legitimacy as the head of the Syrian state.
Thus, the participation of the Syrian president in the Arab League summit is a symbolic point in the end of the civil war and the complete recognition of Assad as the winner in this conflict.
ASSAD "BALANCED" BY ZELENSKY
The restoration of Syria's membership in the Arab League and the participation of its head in the summit of the organization has already caused a sharp reaction in the United States, where members of Congress called on the Joe Biden administration to impose new sanctions against Damascus.
“Assad’s re-admission to the Arab League is a serious strategic mistake that will push Assad, Russia and Iran to continue killing civilians and further destabilize the Middle East,” the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in a statement signed by Republican Michael McCall and Democrat Gregory Mix .
At the same time, the host country in the person of Saudi Arabia took into account such rejection from the United States and the West. In order not to worsen the already tense relations with Washington, it was decided to balance Assad's participation in the event by inviting the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky , to it . This step, as conceived by the organizers, on the contrary, should have been positively received in the West.
As Igor Subbotin, a specialist in international relations in the Middle East, told specifically for IA REGNUM , Zelensky's trip and his speech at the Arab League summit are designed to rearrange the emphasis in the meaning of this intra-Arab meeting. The talks in Jeddah were originally supposed to be a reflection of the success of Russian diplomacy, for which the process of returning Syria to the bosom of the Arab family turned out to be very resource-intensive. And Assad's arrival was seen as a pivotal moment in the regional summit.
It is likely that the Saudi ruling house, having agreed to accept Zelensky, decided to muffle this motif. That is, at the regional level, the kingdom goes against generally accepted approaches and restores the status of Damascus, and at the global level, on the contrary, it tries to meet the expectations of its ally in the person of the United States, demonstrating the diversification of its diplomatic contacts and its readiness to play the role of a mediator in the Ukrainian problem.
“It can be said that Saudi Arabia played a switch of scale at the summit in order to avoid a possible pick on the Syrian issue at the Arab League summit in advance,” Subbotin said.
GEOPOLITICAL SHIFTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
On the one hand, as noted above, the return of Syria to the Arab League could not take place without Russia's intervention in the Syrian conflict and its ability to create a multi-level system of interested parties around the Syrian settlement, providing links between them and Damascus.
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This began with the gradual normalization of SAR relations with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt and ended at the present stage with the restoration of ties with Saudi Arabia, as well as with Turkey, with which contacts are developing. In all these processes, Russian diplomacy took an active part, and without it, there could be no question of Assad's triumph.
On the other hand, there is also the Iranian factor: it is unlikely that the Russian military operation could have helped the Assad government in any way if the Iranians had not come to its aid at the very beginning of the civil war.
It was Tehran's support that was able to keep the Syrian regime afloat until the fall of 2015, when the first Russian air group arrived in the SAR. And it is Iran that is the closest ally of Syria, having the greatest influence on decision-making in Damascus.
Therefore, the condition for the restoration of Syria's participation in the Arab League was the normalization of relations between Tehran and Riyadh, which were in a state of preparation for a military confrontation with each other. At the same time, it was the Yemeni case, and not the Syrian one, that was decisive for the process of restoring Iranian-Saudi ties.
That is, we can say that the path to a more condescending attitude of Saudi Arabia towards Syria lay through Yemen and the refusal of Iranian allies in this country (the Houthi rebels) to continue rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia.
And, finally, the common platform on which the above trends were based is the crisis in relations between the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf, primarily Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
It is the stagnation in relations between the United States and the Arab monarchies that has made these countries immune to signals from Washington. Including those that concerned the categorical rejection of both the normalization of relations between the Arab states and Assad, and the return of Syria to the Arab League.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the 32nd Arab Summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 19, 2023
Thus, the restoration of Syria's membership in the Arab League is an important step in a larger regional geopolitical shift, as a result of which the states of the Middle East and North Africa entered into a number of new diplomatic alliances that challenged the existing regional order.
Also, the reunification of Syria with the Arab world is certainly an indicator of the increased role of Saudi Arabia as a regional power. Even Riyadh's failures in the Yemeni conflict could not prevent Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from leading the kingdom on the path of becoming another pole of the multipolar world.
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Several Arab states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Morocco have refused to normalize relations with Damascus and continue to argue that the Assad government is illegitimate. Despite this, Saudi Arabia has used its influence as a leader in the Arab and Islamic worlds to convince them not to prevent Syria from returning to the Arab League.
The move is pragmatic on their part, as Riyadh and other Arab capitals prefer to deal with Damascus based on how they understand their countries' national interests.
In recent months, these countries have acted increasingly independently. At the same time, new actors such as China came into play, challenging the US and taking the place of Washington as the chief mediator in the region, pushing through the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal.
In addition, one cannot ignore the consequences of the devastating earthquake on February 6, which seriously affected part of Syria. It hastened the decision by Arab capitals to soften course on Damascus at a time when it was struggling to get much-needed assistance under the current sanctions.
SUCCESSES AND FAILURES WILL BE MONITORED
It should also be borne in mind that there are no "free meals" in Middle East politics. The Syrian leader's trip to Jeddah will by no means involve mainly greetings and pats on the back. This, of course, is also important and symbolic, but substantive issues are still in the foreground.
In particular, about how and in what way the Syrian government intends to fulfill the conditions that the Arab League countries put forward to Damascus as necessary steps. The restoration of SAR membership in the organization was linked to the implementation by the Syrian government of the corresponding road map. That is, the decision to join Syria to the Arab League, of course, was an advance payment for its leadership.
The restoration of Syrian participation in the Arab League followed the initiative of Jordan, announced at a meeting of foreign ministers of the SAR and Arab states in Amman on May 1. The initiative included an action plan to end the civil conflict in Syria. It includes solving the problems of refugees, searching for and releasing missing prisoners, stopping drug smuggling and withdrawing pro-Iranian militants.
Jordan is the main transit route for the Syrian drug Captagon to the Persian Gulf countries and is ready to take unilateral measures if it does not see decisive action from Damascus to curb the drug trade.
Such a signal in anticipation of Assad's trip to Jeddah has already been sent by Amman. On May 8, the Jordanian Air Force attacked the headquarters of Syrian drug traffickers in southern Syria in the province of Suwayda. A Jordanian airstrike killed one of the leaders of the Syrian drug traffickers, Marai al-Ramtan .
Also, according to a Jordanian official, Syria needs to show that it is serious about reaching a political solution, as this will be a precondition for lobbying for any lifting of Western sanctions. And this, in turn, is an important step in financing the restoration of the SAR and attracting investment from the Arab League.
In addition, a special commission was created to monitor the process of Syria's movement along the "road map" of the Arab League, which will monitor the successes and failures of Damascus along this path and draw appropriate conclusions.
AND WHAT DOES RUSSIA GET?
Of course, Russia played a key role in the process that brought Syria back into the fold of the Arab states. However, one should not be too optimistic about the possible dividends for Moscow from this move.
Of course, the restoration of economic ties between Syria and the Arab states can turn the SAR into another element in the system of circumventing anti-Russian sanctions. Numerous "gray" zones in Syria may contribute to the transformation of this country into another hub for overcoming Western restrictions. But for this it is necessary to create an appropriate infrastructure in the country, in which Russia has not yet shown heightened interest.
In particular, there has not been any significant investment in the port of Tartus since the signing of a Russian-Syrian agreement a few years ago on the management of this infrastructure facility, which is in need of serious modernization and reconstruction.
On the other hand, one should not fall into excessive pessimism about the fact that the rapprochement of the SAR with the Arab states will further reduce Russian influence in this country, where it was already difficult for Russia to compete with Iran.
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As long as Assad is in power, Syria will not move away from Russia.
There are still areas in the country held by opposition and radical groups, which are comparable in their combat capability and numbers to the Syrian government forces. Under these conditions, the departure of Russia would become an existential problem for Assad.
Finally, if we talk about the economic content of Russian-Syrian relations, they have never been put in the first place, but were a concomitant element of the military-political cooperation between Moscow and Damascus. For Russia, the interest in Syria is primarily its geopolitical position.
This country is an important element of Russian foreign policy, since it is from the Syrian platform that Russia is projecting force on the entire region. The military presence gives Russia the opportunity to participate in the politics of the Middle East as a full-fledged Middle East player, and not just an extra-regional actor.
Finally, Russia not only marks its military-political presence in the Middle East, but also threatens the southern flank of NATO. In addition, Russian bases in the SAR are an intermediate point for advancing to Africa.
Therefore, Russia, on the contrary, will be ready to act as a guarantor of stability in the SAR, including in the issue of securing investments from the Arab states. One way or another, Moscow will still benefit from the restoration of Damascus's membership in the Arab League and is unlikely to lose anything.