Putin’s move will remind Assad to beware the Ides of March

Russian president Vladimir Putin's announcement that he plans to pull his military aircraft and troops out of Syria has had an instant impact on both the situation on the ground in Syria and the diplomatic level. Moscow and Damascus no longer have the upper hand either on the battlefield or the negotiation table. As the saying goes, "You cannot win at the negotiating table what you have not won on the battlefield."

Moscow has been the main political and military power broker on the Syrian scene based on the 9,000 sorties its war planes have flown against anti-government insurgents. This leverage has now evaporated.

Putin appears to have timed this shock move to weaken Damascus at the start of the Geneva peace talks. The Syrian government has adopted a hard line by stating its refusal to discuss the fate of president Bashar al-Assad while the opposition remains adamant he depart. Unless the gulf between the sides over Assad’s fate is bridged there can be no transition to a new order for Syria.

Putin has said he will maintain Russia’s naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus and the airbase established last fall near Latakia, providing an opportunity for his planes and troops to return. The retention of these facilities demonstrates that he has no intention of completley abandoning his military assets in Syria.

Pace of withdrawal

Whether Putin retains influence will depend on the pace of his withdrawal and whether he delivers serious efforts on the diplomatic front.

If he carries out a staged rather than a sweeping withdrawal, gauged to ensure the two week old ceasefire remains in place, Putin will retain a certain amount of leverage on the ground in Syria and in the diplomatic arena.

Conveyed to the Syrian president the day before the withdrawal was due to begin, Putin’s decision has also diminished the ability of the regime to resist the demands of the opposition for Assad’s removal. Russia’s pull-out follows Iran’s repatriation of a large proportion of the 3,000 military personnel deployed in Syria at the height of the Russian-Iranian drive to counter assaults by insurgents on the Syrian army. This joint action was, belatedly, spurred by the reverses incurred by the Syrian army following Saudi Arabia’s provision of heavy weapons and other equipment to insurgent factions last March.

These reverses prompted Assad to admit his army was undermanned and overstretched. In addition to air cover for Syrian army operations, Moscow upgraded Syria's arsenal and provided front line advisers. The bombers and soldiers enabled Assad's army to retake 400 strategic villages , close insurgent supply lines between Turkey and Aleppo and maintain government routes linking Damascus to Homs and Hama.

Reinforcements

The withdrawal of first Iranian and now Russian military reinforcements means Damascus has lost the borrowed power of Moscow and Tehran. The government must, for now, continue to rely on Lebanon’s Shia Hizbullah movement, Iraqi Shia militiamen, and Iranian-drafted irregulars.

What remains to be seen is if the Riyadh-supported opposition HNC will retain its borrowed power. This comes from Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the military theatre and mainly from France and the US on the diplomatic level. Opposition forces – comprising hundreds of opportunistic militias and three main coalitions in the north, centre and south – are weak and divided and cannot defeat government forces. In addition the HNC has little support among Syrians who consider its members, as they put it, "suits in Istanbul hotels." There is no opposition figure who commands enough popular Syrian credibility to take over from Assad.

To keep the Geneva talks going both Paris and Washington will have to exert pressure on hard-line Riyadh and Turkey – which seek Assad's early if not instant departure – to give peace a chance by searching for a compromise both sides can accept. So far, the US, which has lost considerable influence in both Saudi Arabia and Turkey, has not been prepared to exert itself, partly because the Obama administration's policy remains rooted in regime change.

Putin's move has undermined Damascus' trust in Russia and is seen by loyalists as an Ides of March stab in the back.