Russia could be poised to beome a super power again after agreeing with the US to launch what amounts to a joint air campaign against the two main extreme Islamist groups in Syria. If the ceasefire that starts at sunset on Monday holds for seven consecutive days and the UN is able to deliver aid to besieged people in Aleppo, then the US and Russia will establish “a joint implementation centre” that will organise joint military targeting by American and Russian aircraft directed against Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda which has relabelled itself – with al-Qaeda publicly assenting to a break with its affiliate – as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
For the US and Russia to plan and implement what may be a lengthy air campaign in Syria is perhaps the most striking aspect of the deal announced in Geneva early on Saturday morning. If the plan goes ahead, it goes a long way towards elevating Russia back to the status of a superpower – at least in the Middle East – that it lost with fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Military partnership with the US, though in pursuit of the single objective of attacking Isis and al-Nusra, is a powerful incentive for Moscow to insist that the Syrian air force stop combat missions over all opposition areas, aside from those held by Isis.