Russia’s Action Means the U.S. Can No Longer Back Down

The crisis in Ukraine does not threaten U.S. “cooperation” with Russia on Syria. Why? Because there was no true cooperation in the first place, beyond the limited exception of the chemical weapons agreement, itself of little import in the larger struggle.

President Putin’s actions, language and outrageous dissembling on Ukraine, supposedly in favor of self-determination at the expense of sovereignty, put to the lie his justification of the Assad regime on the basis of sovereignty at the expense of self-determination. This hypocrisy should not surprise anyone. Putin is in the Syria game not to cooperate with the United States, but to defend an ally who provides bases and purchases weapons, and to block effective U.S. action along the lines of Kosovo or Libya, which he sees as illegal. The new U.S. and E.U. sanctions will make Putin even more determined to support Assad.

As for the chemical weapons agreement, it came about only because Russia believed the U.S. would otherwise strike. If the Russians stop encouraging Assad to adhere to what is now a United Nations Security Council resolution on chemical weapons, they undercut their own great power status flowing from permanent five membership on the council. But even if they did stop, the U.S. threat to use force if chemical weapons are employed again is still out there.

Ironically, the crisis in Ukraine and the unveiling of the "real" Putin have made impossible any new American reluctance to act, were chemical weapons used anew. The Obama administration simply could not be seen as backing down again, this time in a region, unlike Crimea, where the correlation of forces favors America.

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