The Russian navy -- and before it the Soviet navy -- has long desired a warm-water port to serve the Russian fleet when winter freezes the Baltic Sea ports, rendering them inoperable for months at a time.

It was with that in mind that in 1979 the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, crossing in from the neighboring Central Asian Soviet states. For the Soviets, the invasion of Afghanistan was intended as a first step, from where it was widely believed Pakistan could have been next, and would have finally given the Soviets their warm-water port.

But as recent history showed us, Moscow's plans didn't exactly turn out the way the Kremlin had intended. The Soviets then, much as the U.S.-led coalition now, realized just how ferocious the Islamist-inspired resistance in Afghanistan can be.

Additionally, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came at a time when the Cold War was reaching new levels with Washington trying to bankrupt the Soviet Union by forcing the Soviets to spend billions of dollars, which they didn't have, just to try and keep up with the West. And the plan paid dividends.

Washington also chose to support, finance, arm and train the Afghan mujahedin, the holy warriors of Islam, who were fiercely opposed to the Soviet invasion. Washington erroneously saw in the mujahedin a natural ally with whom they could unite to fight the atheist communist invader.

Again as history would show, this time the plans did not turn out exactly as Washington had expected. True, the Soviets did lose the war and were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan. But the victory by the Islamists spawned a new menace -- Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, who in turn supported the extremist, backward-thinking, ruthless and bloody regime of the Taliban.

Having successfully routed the Soviets, the Taliban were now preparing for another war, this time with their former backers, the United States. The Soviets' age-old dream of having access to a warm-water port had been shelved -- temporarily.

The "temporarily" turned out to be longer than the Kremlin had hoped, as two men, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, kept the region in turmoil. Saddam, through his occupation of Kuwait in 1990, gave bin Laden a springboard from which to jump onto the front pages of the world's newspapers and primetime television news and win the support of a good portion of the Arab and Muslim street.

But now, if one is to believe Syrian opposition sources in Washington, the Russians "are attempting to establish a beachhead in the Mediterranean." The purported deal would partially forgive "Syria's debt accumulated during the Soviet era in return for a warm-water port in Tartous and Latakia," reports Farid Ghadry, a Syrian exile who runs a group called the Reform Party of Syria.

According to Ghadry, "Russia, in 2005, was willing to write off $10 billion worth of debt in return for Russian naval presence in Tartous and Latakia."

Ghadry, who once described himself to this correspondent as "the Syrian version of Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi," sees this as Syrian President Bashir al-Assad "dousing himself with gasoline by inviting Russia to play, once again, in the politics of the Middle East that are too reminiscent of the Cold War era."

If the Russian-Syrian naval deal holds any water, "Russia will undoubtedly deploy sophisticated air defenses around both Syrian cities that could, according to Assad's calculations, protect Syria from a certain future when the Iraq theater comes under scrutiny from a U.S. military not too happy to see its assets come under attacks by Syria and Iran."

But that is assuming there is any truth to this report. As Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, told this correspondent Saturday, "You simply cannot hide battleships in the Mediterranean. That's ridiculous."

Assuming for a moment that indeed the Russians were to find accommodation for their fleets in a Syrian port, in order to reach the Mediterranean, Russian ships would still need to pass through either the Straits of Gibraltar, controlled by Britain -- thus NATO -- or through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey, also a NATO member.

Indeed, Russia's desire for a warm-water port is more likely to come about as a result of global warming.

(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.)

(e-mail: [email protected])

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