It seems bizarre that the fortunes of the U.S.-Russia relationship should rise and fall on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In August 2013, after the horrendous sarin gas attack by the Syrian Army on Eastern Ghouta that killed over 1500 people, President Obama nearly ordered missile strikes in Syria but accepted the offer from President Putin to get Assad’s chemical weapons destroyed under international supervision. Now, Moscow and Washington are once again in a standoff over U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for, what appears to be, Assad’s use of chemical weapons on Apr. 4 in the opposition controlled areas of Idlib. The attack killed over 70 people, many of them children. It was not supposed to be this way. Fighting ISIS was supposed to be the low-hanging fruit for both the U.S. and Russia to relaunch their relationship under Trump, a president who even exhibited some willingness to work with Assad on fighting terrorism. Just days before the chemical attack both the White House and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson essentially recognized the “political reality of Assad staying” in power. Moscow was looking forward to re-engaging with the U.S. on this area of common interest. The chemical attack in Idlib changed everything. It produced a radical shift in Trump’s personal position on Syria and Assad and made military action against the Syrian regime to punish and deter further attacks difficult to avoid. Trump boxed himself in politically by initially blaming “Obama’s weak response” and the decision not to punish Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013 with missile strikes. Trump had to prove his toughness by launching a military response for a horrendous act by Assad that “crossed many many lines.” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson bluntly stated that Russia and Iran bear moral responsibility for the civilian deaths in the attack. Even more ominously, he called upon Russia to reconsider its support for Assad, who would have “no role to govern the Syrian people,” and even opened the door to regime change in Syria through “an international effort.”

These are all are major reversals of Trump’s declared positions, and a major blow to Moscow’s hopes for reshaping its relationship with Washington. The Kremlin now must find the right strategy to handle this problem. Fortunately, it has a few options it can put on the table next week, when Tillerson meets with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Russia’s initial reaction to the chemical attack was a blanket defense of Assad’s air force: they bombed a rebel chemical weapons factory. Those same rebels then staged videos of children dying of exposure to sarin gas. It was predictably hapless. It was also obvious that Moscow was taken aback by the attack. Russia’s friends in Syria failed to give them the heads up. In reacting to Trump’s missile strike on Assad’s air force, Russia leaned heavily on escalatory rhetoric, but its response had little substance. Moscow labeled the strike an act of aggression against a sovereign state, and suspended a military-to-military agreement on avoiding incidents in Syria’s crowded airspace. Overall, the reaction was self defeating. After all, Russia was warned in advance by the United States through this exact agreement. It may be that Russia will increase the number of its air defense systems in Syria to make U.S. operations there more difficult, but this will not change much on the ground. Moscow appears to understand that this was a one-off attack to demonstrate the U.S.’s credibility in enforcing vital international norms and projecting an image of U.S. strength to other powers. Russia is still sticking to its guns in its blanket defense of the Syrian regime, but this time around Assad may have overplayed his hand. He disrespected Putin by making him look helpless as a guarantor of the chemical weapons deal with Washington or worse, complicit with Assad in cheating on the agreement. He humiliated Putin before Trump by making Putin look weak. It is a slight the Russian leader has never taken lightly. There is a sense among the Russian players that Assad was perhaps deliberately trying to scuttle the Astana peace process in which Moscow and Ankara invested much political capital. Assad and Tehran want full military victory, not a power sharing arrangement with defeated rebels. Assad and his Iranian backers never thought much about Astana and were clearly irritated by Russia and Turkey acting like the guys who run the show.

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