Obama to Hollande: Stay the course against Russia

By Michael Crowley

U.S. fears Putin is hoping greater action against ISIL will prevent more sanctions over Crimea.

When President Obama hosts French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, he’ll have more on his agenda than demonstrating solidarity against terrorism. He’ll also be working to make sure Hollande sticks with the international effort to punish and isolate Vladimir Putin for his aggression in Ukraine.
Privately, Obama officials say they are concerned about whether key European leaders are prepared to extend sanctions on Moscow, which expire in late January. And they are wary of any effort by Putin — who hosts Hollande in Moscow later this week — to link events in Syria and Ukraine. The fear is that Putin might try to trade more aggressive Russian action against ISIL for France’s backing in reducing or ending the sanctions.

A premature end to sanctions in Europe “is always our worry,” said Evelyn Farkas, who served until last month at the Pentagon’s top official for Russia and Ukraine. “They can’t back away from sanctions. Ukraine is a separate situation” from Syria.
That is also the fear of Ukrainian government officials, who in recent days have shared their concern that Putin might be trying to earn western goodwill in the wake of the November 13 Paris attacks by pounding ISIL targets in Syria — and that Kiev’s struggle to defend its borders will suffer as a result.
A top-level debate is underway behind the scenes among Obama officials over how effective sanctions have been at curbing Putin’s ambitions. The sanctions, which limit travel by Russian officials and restrict the access of Russian companies to international markets, were imposed after Putin’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent support for a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. The conflict has left some 8,000 people dead, most of them civilians.
Twice caught off guard by Putin’s sneak attacks — in Ukraine and in Syria, where he unexpectedly began airstrikes this fall — officials are also debating what the Russian president’s next game-changing move could be.
In public, the White House strikes a confident tone, insisting that Putin won’t get away with any effort to connect Syria to Ukraine.
“We do not in any way want to see any linkage of the Ukrainian issue to the situation in Syria,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with the president last week. “The sanctions that have been imposed on Russia are not because of Syria. They’re because of Ukraine, and Russia’s persistent violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
But Obama officials aren’t certain of Hollande’s intentions. The French leader — whose country is losing lucrative business with Moscow to the sanctions — has spoken optimistically in recent weeks about their eventual removal.
And his outreach to Putin after the November 13 Paris attacks has raised eyebrows in Washington. After meeting with President Obama on Tuesday, the French president will travel to Moscow to confer with the Russian president, whom he has suggested should become a partner in the west’s fight against ISIL.
The Paris attacks have left some French officials nodding their head in agreement with Obama critics in the U.S. who say he lacks a vigorous enough strategy for defeating ISIL.
“I think it’s difficult to blame the French for exploring [coordination with Russia], especially since President Obama has implied this week that the Paris attacks aren’t an event that justify altering the U.S. strategy in Syria,” said Simond de Galbert, a former diplomat at France’s foreign ministry who is now a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Whatever you think of the Russians, the fact is that they are the only ones able and willing to commit significant assets to the fight,” de Galbert added.
Hollande hints at a similar view. In a speech shortly after the Paris attacks, he called for “one big coalition” to fight the Syria-based radical group. “It’s with this goal in mind that I will meet in the coming days with President Obama and President Putin to join forces and achieve a result that has been postponed for too long.”
Putin began bombing Syria in September, soon after calling for a global coalition against ISIL like the one that defeated Nazi Germany. But Obama has refused Putin’s offer of military coordination. U.S. officials believe that Putin has used ISIL as a pretext to intervene on behalf of Russia’s ally, the Syrian president Bashar Assad, whom Obama wants toppled. Initially, most of Russia’s air strikes in Syria — which began in late September — have targeted non-ISIL rebel fighters.
Russia may now have more credibility as an anti-ISIL ally, after suffering its own horrific attack on October 31, when a Russian airliner with 224 people aboard was downed by a bomb planted by an ISIL affiliate in Egypt. Russia has responded by pounding the ISIL capital of Raqqa, Syria, with air strikes and cruise missiles. Last week, Putin ordered his forces to coordinate such strikes with what he referred to as Russia’s French “allies.”
Obama officials say they’re open to cooperating with Putin against ISIL at some point. But not so long as he is targeting other non-ISIL rebel fighters, including ones armed and trained by the CIA.
“If Russia is serious about going after ISIL and wants to make that their focus, then that’s a conversation that we’re still willing to have,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said last week. “And neither President Obama nor Secretary Kerry has ruled out the possibility of cooperation in the future if, in fact, that’s where Russia wants to take things militarily.”
Rhodes also suggested that Putin’s support for Assad prevents true coordination between Washington and Moscow. “Even if Russia does make that military focus shift to [ISIL]… we would want to see them using their leverage through the Vienna process to ensure that there’s an orderly transition that involves Assad leaving power.” Vienna is the site where diplomats have been meeting to discuss a possible Syria peace settlement.
Underlying the question of a potential alliance with Putin against ISIL is the simmering issue of Ukraine, where Russia’s support for separatist rebels has drawn severe U.S. and European Union sanctions, and where a crucial December 31 deadline is looming.
That is the date by which the parties to the conflict — Kiev, Moscow and Russian-backed separatists — are supposed to comply with 13 provisions of a February peace agreement reached in Minsk. The provisions include the pullout of all Russian forces and full restoration of Ukrainian government control over its eastern border.
U.S. and European officials — including Hollande — say Russia has yet to comply with several of the provisions and that sanctions must not be lifted until that has happened. But some Obama officials note that the separatists have recently dialed back their offensives, and speculate that Putin is hoping the calm could allow him to shake off at least some of the sanctions this winter even if some of Minks’s provisions remain unmet.
De Galbert said the U.S. worries are overstated.
“I don’t think you will see significant concessions on Ukraine in exchange for some more air strikes from the Russians. I think that the fate of the Russia sanctions will be analyzed based on the situation in Ukraine,” he said.
But not everyone in the Obama administration is wholly convinced, and Obama continues to press the interest, just in case. Putin has already surprised him too many times.