For Putin, „Operation Syria“ is a big success.
He managed:
He managed:
1) To become the key player in a strategically import region, important regionally as well as globally. Putin is now the patron, Assad the client. Putin decides over the future of Syria. As a consequence, Iran and Israel became partially, to a degree, dependent on Russia.
2) To accelerate US departure from the region.
3) To demonstrate that Russia can be a reliable ally for a dictator struggling with protest.
4) To advance his big project „to make the world safe for autocracy“, reversing the post-1989 global trend towards liberal democracy by showing that autocracy is winning and is legitime.
5) To isolate Turkey (from the West) in order to weaken it geopolitically and to at least partially control it — Turkey is a key country with regard to Middle East, South Caucasus, Black Sea region.
6) To destabilize and weaken EU-Europe internally by pushing waves of refugees towards EU-Europe, a tactic that has greatly worked in 2015.
7) To develop a template that can also be used in other countries: Libya seems to be the next stop, with Haftar in the role of Assad.
8) To minimize the prize for this bold strategy through diplomatic action and a constant stream of disinformation and propaganda.
