A divided Syria to have ugly consequences

Syria’s five year agony looks to the outsider like a war that can’t get any worse, but it may about to, with the looming possibility of superpower confrontation driven as much by the West particularly America as any actions Russia is taking.
After five years of wringing its hands and doing nothing, Western powers, Britain included, are suddenly making gung-ho statements about no-fly zones and shooting down hostile aircraft - even if those aircraft are Russian.
As a reaction against the bombing of a UN aid convoy - by forces yet to be identified - and the climax of the battle of Aleppo, Western politicians and many commentators are flapping about escalation, oblivious of the nightmare scenario that NATO and Russian jets do combat in the Syrian skies.
Think about that for a minute: American and allied jets scoot around the skies, as they did over Libya five years ago, confronting not the remains of Muammar Gaddafi’s antiquated air force, but modern Russian planes which can give as much as they get.
For the policymakers, politicians and civil servants in far-away chanceries there will be the safisfaction of showing their voters they are at last taking the Syrian war seriously. For the NATO pilots, required to make split second decisions on which aircraft is in their gunsights, and whether amid the fog of war that aircraft is targetting civilians rather than rebel troops, it is a nightmare. Trust me, I know aviators.
And imagine for a second a finger hits a button. A missile is released. A Russian jet is downed - or evades, and downs a NATO plane instead. What then? Is NATO seriously proposing to escalate, for an all-out war against Russian forces? Would such a war be confined to Syrian airspace? Would it spill over into a Cold-War style battle between each side’s naval assets across the coast? Would it even be limited to the Syrian theatre? And would this war actually help the Syrians suffering from a grim and multi-sided war in which the concept of a good guy died a long time ago? Can Turkey still be trusted to be a member of NATO?
Already the propaganda war is in full swing. Western media are full of images of the White Helmets, who profess to be unarmed and neutral. In truth, they are embedded only in areas controlled by US-supported forces, the so-called‘ moderate terrorists’ like Ahrar al Sham and Al Nusra, the latter allies of Al Qaeda. And, apparently allies of the US, until the next terrorist outrage in which they will become enemies and some new ‘moderate terrorist” formation must be courted. The fact is there are no independent journalists left in Aleppo, no way of assessing who the White Helmets are nor how many of the targets struck have military significance.
A further fact is that the West made half-hearted efforts to end the Syrian war years ago, hustling all the “rebel” leaders into rooms in Geneva and elsewhere to urge them to form a common negotiating front against the Assad regime. And what was the result? They bickered so much with each other that a common front never emerged.
And without that, Western policy simply died. President Bush bombed Iraq on the pretext of nothing more than its alleged connections to Al Qaeda, yet now Obama is arming and supporting Al Qaeda against Assad!
Yes, Russia is supporting the Assad regime, and yes, that regime has bedrock support in many parts of the country, and yes, Russian bombs are also hitting IS. President Putin said of it: “The state of affairs there is very serious. Daesh (IS) controls significant stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria".
What is missing from western calculations is that this is a war. And it is a war where western interests and Russian interests are colliding amid the sand and blood of smashed Syrian cities.
What is also missing is a search for the common ground. For Putin IS is as much a threat as it is for Washington. IS threatens Russia and Central Asia specifically. And like Washtington,the Kremlin is intent on being a part of the solution to these problems.
There is little love now between the capitals of the world’s two nuclear powers, the Russians smarting that western backing for groups that morphed into terrorist organistions, and its endless push-button policies on complex Middle East problems, have made the regions already bad problems worse.
In Putin’s words: “This is a crisis which was absolutely expected. We in Russia said several years ago that there would be massive problems if our Western partners conduct what I have always called the ‘wrong’ foreign policy, especially in regions of the Muslim world.”
What is missing from the ever harsher sabre rattling in foreign capitals is a dose of Cold War style Realpolitik. Has the West lived without the fear of (MAD) mutually assured (nuclear) destruction so long, it has forgotten its horrendous danger? There are only two powers with the heft to solve Syria and Moscow and Washington should be talking, now, about how to fix it. Those talks should start with a realisation that each has strategic interests in the region, and work on from there. The end state may be a Syria divided, and that end state will not be pretty. But it will be a whole lot prettier than the current bloodbath, and infinitely preferable to the risk of armed confrontation, dare I say it, that could result in WW111 between Moscow and Washington that is frighteningly looming ever closer to becoming reality. - Exclusive to Times of Oman