The Kremlin, for a variety of reasons, brings chess to mind.
Perhaps it’s because the Kremlin is a clear symbol of Russia, a country that has given the world one chess grandmaster after the next.
Perhaps it’s because the Kremlin is a clear symbol of Russia, a country that has given the world one chess grandmaster after the next.
Maybe it’s because parts of the Kremlin’s outer wall look like the rooks on a chessboard.
Or maybe it’s because of the chessboard-like pattern on the stunning wooden floor in the stately hall where Russian President Vladimir Putin greets his foreign guests.
Or maybe it’s because of the chessboard-like pattern on the stunning wooden floor in the stately hall where Russian President Vladimir Putin greets his foreign guests.
Whatever the reason, it’s chess – not dominoes, checkers or backgammon – that shouts out at you from the Kremlin.
Chess, where all the moves are interconnected; where a skilled player is thinking many steps down the road; where one seemingly innocuous move on one side of the board can have a huge impact a few moves later on a critical piece somewhere else.
And it is chess that Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were engaged in Wednesday evening, when they met in that high-ceilinged, green-glass-chandeliered, oval room in the Kremlin with that chessboard-looking wooden floor.
Chess, where all the moves are interconnected; where a skilled player is thinking many steps down the road; where one seemingly innocuous move on one side of the board can have a huge impact a few moves later on a critical piece somewhere else.
And it is chess that Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were engaged in Wednesday evening, when they met in that high-ceilinged, green-glass-chandeliered, oval room in the Kremlin with that chessboard-looking wooden floor.
The first thing that can be said about that meeting is that Netanyahu did not fly all the way to Moscow for a 90-minute meeting with Putin just to tell the Russian leader that Israel is resolutely opposed to a permanent Iranian presence in Syria, or that Jerusalem is adamant that the 1974 Separation Agreement between its troops and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights is honored in its entirety.
Netanyahu could have repeated those talking points to Putin on the phone. Or, as he told Putin himself during a brief photo opportunity before their meeting, “it is clear that our focus is Syria and Iran. Our opinion that Iran has to leave Syria is known; this is nothing new to you.”
And to reiterate that position, or to hear that position reiterated, is neither the reason Netanyahu went to Moscow again this week, nor why Putin invited him. Netanyahu and Putin meet so often because they need to manage a situation whereby the two countries’ cardinal interests in Syria do not clash.
As a senior member of Netanyahu’s delegation put it after Wednesday’s meeting, “Russia’s central goal, and one in which they are heavily invested, is that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad will continue to rule, if not over all of Syria then over most of Syria.
Netanyahu could have repeated those talking points to Putin on the phone. Or, as he told Putin himself during a brief photo opportunity before their meeting, “it is clear that our focus is Syria and Iran. Our opinion that Iran has to leave Syria is known; this is nothing new to you.”
And to reiterate that position, or to hear that position reiterated, is neither the reason Netanyahu went to Moscow again this week, nor why Putin invited him. Netanyahu and Putin meet so often because they need to manage a situation whereby the two countries’ cardinal interests in Syria do not clash.
As a senior member of Netanyahu’s delegation put it after Wednesday’s meeting, “Russia’s central goal, and one in which they are heavily invested, is that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad will continue to rule, if not over all of Syria then over most of Syria.
That is what interests the Russians. And who can bring down the Assad regime? Jordan? Who can easily confront the Syrian Army, and Assad’s regime with ease? Israel.
Israel, the official noted, has been careful not to get involved in Syria, except on the edges through humanitarian aid. But when Iran goes into Syria, Israel gets involved, and if Israel gets involved, then the whole equation changes.
Israel, the official noted, has been careful not to get involved in Syria, except on the edges through humanitarian aid. But when Iran goes into Syria, Israel gets involved, and if Israel gets involved, then the whole equation changes.
“The Russians have a great interest in seeing the Assad regime stable, and we have an interest in removing the Iranians from Syria,” the official said. “Those interests can either clash or support one another.” The Netanyahu-Putin meetings, writ large, are efforts to ensure that those two interests do not clash.
BUT THAT is only part of the game, said Zvi Magen, a fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, who has served formerly as ambassador to Russia, to Ukraine, and as head of the Nativ liaison organization inside the Prime Minister’s Office dealing with the former Soviet Union.
To listen to Magen speak is to hear someone who thinks Putin is playing chess not just with Netanyahu but with the whole world. What is visible at one time, in his telling, is just a small part of what is happening on the bigger board.
BUT THAT is only part of the game, said Zvi Magen, a fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, who has served formerly as ambassador to Russia, to Ukraine, and as head of the Nativ liaison organization inside the Prime Minister’s Office dealing with the former Soviet Union.
To listen to Magen speak is to hear someone who thinks Putin is playing chess not just with Netanyahu but with the whole world. What is visible at one time, in his telling, is just a small part of what is happening on the bigger board.
The real motivation behind Wednesday’s meeting for Putin, Magen assessed, is his meeting on Monday in Helsinki with US President Donald Trump. Netanyahu himself told reporters that he discussed with Putin the overall situation in Syria in advance of that meeting.
According to Magen, when it comes to Syria, it is clear what the West expects with regard to what Russia can give: the removal of the Iranians from Syria. What is less clear – albeit something around which there is a great deal of speculation – is what Russia expects in return.
According to Magen, when it comes to Syria, it is clear what the West expects with regard to what Russia can give: the removal of the Iranians from Syria. What is less clear – albeit something around which there is a great deal of speculation – is what Russia expects in return.
And that, Magen said, is what is worrying the Europeans: that Putin’s price for the removal of the Iranians from Syria is the lifting of economic and diplomatic sanctions that the West clamped on Russia following its invasion and annexation of Crimea.
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