The instability is already there. We have to face reality. Will Syria continue as a state, or will it disintegrate into three or four component parts? If we take on ISIL and defeat and destroy it, I suspect that we will do so in alliance with a coalition of forces. Some of those forces will be non-state actors: the actors will not just be the Governments of the region, but groups such as the PYD, which is currently in effect in control of parts of Syria.
Whether we are talking about creating loose confederations, which may well be the outcome of the political discussions in Baghdad and the internal dynamics in Iraq, or about the outcome of what is happening in Syria, we need a little bit of vision in our thinking about how we can create a longer-lasting international framework for dealing with the issues. I am not saying that this is something for today—the priority today is to build a coalition to defeat the people who want to take the world back 900 years to some mythical Islamist caliphate—but we ultimately need to be aware that some issues coming out of this situation will have to be resolved.
In relation to people who want to take things back to what they were—the role of the man who admires the Soviet Union and wishes to recreate parts of it has
already been mentioned—Russia’s policy now is an attempt not just to turn the clock back a few years, but to recreate some form of Soviet Union-style Russia as it was in the past. The so-called Eurasian customs union is the Putin model to rival the successful European Union, which has acted as a magnet for all the countries of central and eastern Europe. At the same time, Putin is espousing the very dangerous doctrine that Russia has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of any country where there are people who speak Russian. Following that logic is a recipe for renewed conflict all across Europe and in other parts of the world, so we have to resist it and stop it.
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