The Best Deal The US Is Going To Get

Julia Ioffe observes that the UN Syria deal “is in fact a compromise, and, as such, it is a half-measure–even if, this day in age, half-measures are themselves quite the victory.” She looks at the agreement from Putin’s perspective:

The Russians can … say that they have upheld international norms protecting national sovereignty and insuring against unilateral military action. And whereas American policy on Syria has been mercurial and ever-changing, the Russians’ goal has been steadfast for the entire duration of the Syrian civil war: blocking American military intervention. This resolution, because it tables the use of force and kicks that can down the road, allows them to do that.

Most important, the Russians emerge from this latest scuffle as the world’s master diplomats and, finally, as America’s geopolitical equals.

This has been a major Russian goal—and a major reason for its zealous use of the Security Council veto—for the last decade: restoring Russia as a powerful global dealmaker. “Russia is not a vegetarian country,” says [Dmitri] Trenin [the director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow]. “It is not against the use of force. It just wants the use of force to happen with Russia’s approval. Putin wants these things done on an equal footing, not that he’s just helping America pursue its own agenda and getting commission for it.” Reserving the right to veto any future consequences for Assad’s potential violations of Resolution 2118 allows Russia to maintain this equal footing.

Larison points out that Russia would have vetoed a stronger resolution:

The language of the draft resolution is being treated as proof that Russia now “dominates” the Security Council. That sounds very dramatic, but I’m not sure that it makes much sense. Russia previously vetoed every Syria resolution no matter how “toothless” and unenforceable it happened to be, and now it appears to be willing to support one. That represents a modest shift in Russia’s position away from its previous pattern of vetoing everything that the other members proposed. I suppose one can call this Russian “dominance” of the Council if one wants, but it is the same “dominance” that every permanent member can have when it is willing to use its veto to shield a client from U.N. penalties.