Russian naval landing ship, Azov, sails through the Bosphorus Strait past Istanbul, on its way to the Mediterranean Sea.
Russian warplanes are carrying out active operations in Syria, in support of the country’s embattled leader, Bashar al-Assad. Naval ships are also on their way, and possibly "volunteers" to fight as soldiers on land.
Assad’s regime has suffered several setbacks this year, and now controls only 20 percent of the country. Assad’s other allies — Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah — have also stepped up their military aid.
Some observers say the moves smack of a panicked attempt to stop the Assad regime from crumbling.
But Vali Nasr believes otherwise. Nasr is dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
“I think the Russian power play in Syria,” says Nasr, “is designed to convince the countries that are supporting the opposition to Assad — primarily Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — that there is no military victory.”
In other words, taking the idea that Assad will be falling any time soon off the table.
Nasr also says the Russian action is a warning to those nations “that funding the opposition will get them into a direct confrontation with Russia. Russia’s hope is that that will force Saudi Arabia and Turkey to reassess what is possible in Syria, and then agree to negotiations and a diplomatic process that they were previously unwilling to engage in.”
If neither side can see a chance at military victory, that increases the chance of a compromise, argues Nasr.
Nasr believes Russia foresees some kind of grand bargain being hammered out in a conference like that in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995 that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Nasr says that “the hope is that, in the end, everybody will join forces against ISIS.”
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