“Syria cannot be another Afghanistan to Russia for the simple reason that America cannot call the rebels freedom fighters like it did in 1980.” 

With Syrian jets bombing rebels and extremists and Syrian and Iranian groups attacking them on the ground, Moscow seems determined to end the international efforts to topple the Syrian regime and change the balance of power in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, foes of the Syrian government are facing a dilemma, especially since the U.S.-led coalition is targeting ISIS, which Russia is also targeting.

But despite some initial reports that made the Obama administration appear accepting of the Russian intervention, Syria is fast becoming a field for a proxy war between the former cold war enemies.

Washington announced that it suspended its rebel training program, but it has upped its arm supplies to what it calls moderate opposition fighters— a grave mistake if the United States is serious about fighting terrorism. Since the start of the war, U.S.-backed fighters have been crushed by fundamentalist groups and abandoned their weapons or outright defected to join the likes of ISIS and al-Qaeda.

On the ground, the ranks of the Syrian army, which has been exhausted by five years of fighting, are being bolstered by Iranian Revolutionary Guards; Iran’s direct involvement in the conflict is no longer a secret. Also, Hezbollah, Assad’s main partner in the war, is pushing more fighters to the battlefield.

This powerful push confirms that Russia and its allies are serious about rooting extremists out of Syria, despite the newly arrived American aid, which includes anti-tank missiles that could increase the number of fatalities among forces loyal to the government. 

But with the Syrian army’s slow but steady advances in the west, and the dwindling U.S. air strikes on ISIS, a new picture is being painted with a Russian brush. Moscow controls the skies, while Damascus and its allies grow their control on the ground. 

The newly Russian-imposed reality demonstrates the military might of Kremlin under Vladimir Putin, decades after Moscow lost the civil war. 

“It is one thing for the experts to be aware that Russia supposedly has these weapons and another thing for them to see for the first time that they do really exist, that our defense industry is making them, that they are of high quality and that we have well-trained people who can put them to effective use,” Putin said in an interview on state television. “They have seen, too, now that Russia is ready to use them if this is in the interests of our country and our people.”

Adjacent to the military reality, there is a political one. Russia is looking to preserve and fortify a viable government in Syria, led by Assad, a figure who Washington still insists must go. 

In the 1980’s, there was a similar situation where Russia intervened in a country not too far from the Middle East. Back then, the United States funded and armed extremists who waged jihad on the Soviet Union. But those U.S.-backed fanatics became the seeds of al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups that attacked New York, London and Madrid and continue to be a threat to global security. 

America is sending weapons to rebels that may end up in the hands of extremists, but a full military commitment to an anti-government side on the ground would be an act of insanity. That gives Russia the upper hand to execute its plan.

Syria cannot be another Afghanistan to Russia for the simple reason that America cannot call the rebels freedom fighters like it did in 1980. 

-Nabil Haissam is The Arab American News’ correspondent in Beirut.