11/10/12

The UN’s chief humanitarian coordinators for Syria, on a Gulf tour to seek aid, have warned that already scarce resources for the growing number of displaced in the war-torn country are quickly drying up.

The UN’s regional refugee coordinator, Panos Mumtzis, told AFP in Dubai that the aid effort was hit by a “significant funding shortfall,” adding that financial support is needed for shelter, winter preparation, health and water.

The UN estimates some half a million Syrians have fled the country. About 335,000 of them are registered refugees who have escaped to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.

By the end of the year, the UN expects the number to registered refugees to more than double to around 710,000 refugees.

Inside Syria, there are an estimated 1.2 million displaced Syrians living in ill-equipped public buildings.

“This is no longer business as usual. We have moved into an emergency situation. It is a crisis,” said Mumtzis of the 18-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime that shows no signs of abating.

“When we get 2,000 to 3,000 refugees per day crossing the border continuously now for two months, this is really serious.”

The UN has requested $488 million for Syrian refugee assistance alone. So far $142 million, only 29 percent, has been provided.

The situation is just as grim for the UN’s humanitarian agencies assisting Syria’s internally displaced and other vulnerable populations within the country.

A UN call for $348 million for those still trapped within the country’s war-ravaged borders is only 38 percent funded.

The biggest reason for the funding shortage is that the Syrian crisis is unfolding “a lot faster than anyone had thought,” Mumtzis added.

The UN has been forced to revise its humanitarian appeals on three separate occasions in the past six months.

The “speed [of escalation] is reaching levels where we need to have an equally speedy funding mechanism,” said Mumtzis.

But time is one thing the aid agencies don’t have.

Winter is fast approaching, refugee numbers are rising every day and funds are being depleted at an ever-faster rate.

Even more alarming is the fact that at least three quarters of the refugees are women and children, raising fears that a persistent shortage of funds could put the conflict’s most vulnerable populations at even greater risk.

The most urgent need right now is “to be ready for winter,” the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator Radhoune Nouicer told AFP, adding that the aid community’s level of preparedness “will depend on funding.”

In total, more than 2.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance. So far, more than 32,000 people have been killed in the revolt, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Today we are coping… from hand to mouth,” said Mumtzis, who warned the UN “absolutely [does] not” have enough for the increasing demands of the deadly conflict.

“The funds are going out very very quickly because more and more people keep on coming [for help],” said Mumtzis.

The largest donors through the UN system are the United States and the European Union. Arab countries have been primarily donating through local and regional charities, or bilaterally.

Few of the Arab donations, with the exception of a million-dollar pledge by Kuwait and a $7.5 million pledge by Saudi Arabia, have gone through UN agencies.

Saudi Arabia also held a five-day public fundraiser in July raising more than $72.33 million, $5.3 million of which was from King Abdullah himself, though most of it has yet to be allocated and it remains unclear how much of it will go through the UN.

The UN coordinators said they hoped their tour of the oil-rich Arab states of the Gulf which will include Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia will result in pledges of both aid and greater cooperation.

-AFP

21/09/12

Arab League chief Nabil al-Araby said Wednesday that the league, along with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the European Union and the African Union are close to formulating an international agreement penalizing blasphemy and insults to religious figures.

States should not be blamed for insults to Islam made by some individuals, Araby told reporters at the league’s headquarters in Cairo. He renewed his criticism of the US-produced film that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Mohamed and has sparked protests around the world, describing it as “valueless and trivial.”

Araby also denied any disagreements between Arab states over efforts to solve the Syrian crisis. Saudi Arabia did not attend a meeting held earlier this week on the Syrian issue with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Iran.

Egypt’s presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali and an official from the Arab League said the Saudi foreign minister did not attend the Monday meeting in Cairo due to health problems. But Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said his counterpart’s absence was due to a busy agenda.

Araby recently attended a dinner at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, along with UN special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Iran. He said he had also met with Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi at the Arab League over several issues, adding that Salehi expressed his willingness to assist Brahimi and would soon visit Ankara.

Asked about reports claiming that some Arab countries have been arming Syrian opposition rebels, Araby said the league had nothing to do with the arming issue and that any Arab nation doing so is acting outside the league’s framework.

20/09/12

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press – 20 minutes ago 

SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands (AP) — A coalition including the United States, the European Union and the Arab League met Thursday to plot new ways of isolating the regime of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, and a Syrian opposition leader warned that sanctions alone won’t bring the regime down.

The group called Friends of the Syrian People was set up in February after the U.N. Security Council was unable to reach agreement on a resolution condemning Syria’s government, due to opposition from Russia and China.

On Thursday, financial experts joined representatives of the group at their meeting in a coastal suburb of The Hague, Netherlands, to help member countries understand how Syria may be relying on dual-use technologies and front companies to get around the existing sanctions, which include an embargo on oil and arms. Twelve more countries have joined the 60-member coalition, committing also to block Syrian financial transactions and to enforce a travel ban on the country’s top leaders.

The uprising against the Syrian government began in March 2011 as part of Arab Spring protests and intensified after Assad’s government used the country’s military in an attempt to end the unrest. The United Nations estimates that at least 18,000 people have been killed as a result of the fighting, most of them civilians. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, many fleeing as refugees to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.

Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the sanctions are having an effect, despite non-participation by Russia, China and Iran, citing a sharp fall in Syria’s oil exports. “The EU took 90 percent of Syria’s oil,” before the sanctions were applied, he said. “It turns out to be hard for the regime to sell oil elsewhere.”

Abrahim Miro — a member of the Syrian Governing Council, an umbrella organization of Syrian opposition groups cooperating to overthrow the government — said the sanctions alone will not bring Assad’s regime down. He said he hopes increased sanctions and the armed resistance by the Syrian Free Army “will actually cause the economic heart attack and also the military heart attack of the regime.”

Miro said Syria’s continued trade with Iraq and Iran — which were not represented at Thursday’s meeting — is a major source of concern for the opposition.

Abdo Hussameldin — a former official in Syria’s oil ministry, who in March became the highest-ranking member of the government to defect — said the economic sanctions are demoralizing and delegitimizing the regime in the eyes of the country’s people. But he agreed with Miro that the sanctions alone won’t force Assad from office as long as his regime continues to get financial support from countries such as Russia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Lebanon.

In a closing statement, the Friends of Syria coalition called on banks and companies to adhere to the sanctions, even if their government is not a member, or risk damage to their reputation and jeopardize their relations with the rest of the business world.

The Friends of Syria group agreed to meet again in Japan before the end of 2012, though no date was set.

August 11, 2012

The political developments within and outside Syria with respect to the Kurds underscores a new Kurdish political reality: a self-governing Kurdish entity is on the making in the north and north-eastern parts of Syria.

For the past 17 months, the Syrian government is struggling to dismantle the strong rebellion that has impaired its credibility to maintain law and order in the country.

Political analysts believe that the Syrian government would not last long and give in whole or parts of the country to the belligerent opposition groups. The opposition groups are already claiming to be in control of parts of Aleppo, the largest Syrian city, and large areas of the countryside in the north.

Kurds are very much part of the burgeoning political developments. Taking the advantage of the power vacuum in the north and north-eastern parts of the country, created by the continuous and fierce fighting between the government troops and opposition fighters, Kurds have asserted power and control in those areas. It is reported that Kurdish political parties and armed forces are currently administering several north and north-eastern border districts, including Afrin, Kobane, Cindires, Derka Hemko and Girke Lege. It is further reported that Kurdistan flag is raised over official government buildings. These political developments are consolidating a self-governing Kurdish entity in the Kurdish majority populated areas of Syria.

These political gains however remain unstable. It is not determined how these developments proceed in the long run. There are several internal and external obstructions that may change the course of the developments.

The internal impediments are primarily created by the Syrian government and/or belligerent opposition groups. These sources however do not pose any serious threat at the moment. The Syrian government is crumbling progressively. Many high ranking government officials and military officers are increasingly defecting. The military’s control over the country has weakened due to the fierce internal fighting. The State’s security apparatus has become inexistent in the periphery of the country where many of the Kurdish towns are located. The prospective fall of the government at the core,www.ekurd.net the Damascus, would therefore effectuate entire removal of government’s remaining forces from the Kurdish areas. Most of these areas, apart from Qamishli, are already abandoned or forced to abandon by the Kurdish armed forces. 

The primary internal threat to any Kurdish entity is therefore the future Syrian government which would most probably be the Syrian belligerent opposition groups headed by the Syrian National Council (SNC) and dominated by the radical Sunni Islamists. However, any such considerable threat is dependent on the level of power they may consolidate in the future Syrian political establishment. 

Currently, there are reports that the Kurdish armed forces have refused the Syrian opposition groups entering the Kurdish areas. There is no doubt they will keep doing so and confront them militarily should they attempt entering the Kurdish areas. Furthermore, as the Kurdish parties’ sphere of influence widens in the Kurdish areas, the inhabiting people are experiencing a level of freedom they were deprived of for decades. In this circumstance, they will not be ready to give away their freedoms without fierce resistance.

Therefore, any attempt to realign the Syrian sovereignty over the Kurdish areas may only be realised through reconciling the Kurdish aspirations. The Syrian Kurdish parties are pushing for establishing a federal democratic government in the Syrian Kurdistan in the post-Assad era. The Foreign Affairs Office of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) has called for support and protection in establishing a self-governing Kurdish region in the Syrian Kurdistan. The SNC leader, Abdulbaset Sieda, himself a Kurd, in his recent visit to Erbil, Kurdistan Regions capital, assured the Syrian Kurds that their rights and identity will be protected under the new Syrian constitution.

In addition to above internal complications, there are also some external impediments that stem primarily from the regional States. At the forefront is Turkey. The Turkish government has shown serious discomfort with the emerging Kurdish entity forfear of a domino effect on its restive Kurdish inhabitant. The Turkish government is apparently concerned with the PKK infiltration into the Syrian Kurdistan through the PYD and consequently opening up another front for its fight against Turkey. It has already bolstered its military build-up along the border signalling a cross border military intervention if PKK presence is continued. 

The Turkish government has also accelerated its diplomatic reaction. The Turkish Foreign Minister recently visited the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The visit was to pressure the Kurdistan Region to retreat from giving any political and military support to the Syrian Kurds.

However, the burgeoning political developments indicate that Turkey has limited influence to debilitate the new emerging Kurdish entity. The Turkish government knows considerably well that any military move into Syria will result in serious internal, regional and international reaction. Syria and Iran have already warned Turkey from any such dangerous move. The US has also signalled its disapproval. The US has further stated that the Syrian people (including the Kurds) are in charge of their future political direction. The Kurdistan Region has also tacitly rejected any Turkish intervention by stating that Syrian people need to decide their future. 

The PKK has also changed its fighting tactics for the first time in its 28 years of armed struggle in light of the current political developments in the Syrian Kurdistan. PKK leader Murat Karayilan recently announced that PKK strongholds being beyond the Turkish borders remains talk of past and that from now on the guerrilla forces will position themselves in permanent strongholds within the Turkish territory. He stated that the traditional ‘hit and run’ tactic will give way to a new tactic of‘ attack from many directions, take position in strongholds and protect the area’. According to Karayilan, his guerrillas have already implemented this new tactic in Hakari, Cizreand Zagros regions in Turkey by taking positions in bulwarks located 35 kilometres inside the Turkish border. 

It is interesting to note that these areas are located in close proximity to the PYD controlled Kurdish districts in Syria. This indicates that PKK is making strategic moves to protect the emerging political entity in Syrian Kurdistan by establishing strongholds within Turkish borders closer to the Syrian Kurdish areas.

These political developments indicate that the Kurds are up for creating yet another semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The US and European Union have not actively opposed this emerging political development. The regional States are not a position to act unilaterally or collectively to derail this new political entity. What is hoped for is that the political transition takes place without destruction and loss of human life.

Hiwa Zandi, Masters of Laws Student, University of Queensland, Australia. A regular contributing writer for Ekurd.net

DAMASCUS: Syrian rebels sought to seal off President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime from the outside world by seizing border posts amid calls for protests nationwide Friday on “the Ramadan of victory.”

Members of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fought a raging battle with Syrian troops at the Bab al-Hawa border post with Turkey, an AFP photographer at the scene reported, addding that some 150 rebel fighters now controlled the crossing.

More than 300 people were killed across Syria on Thursday’s deadliest day of the uprising now in its 17th month, as both China and Russia again dismayed the West by vetoing UN Security Council action against his regime for the third time.

Two days after rebels killed three of Assad’s security chiefs including his brother-in-law, battles raged in the capital on Friday as the army said it had retaken the district of Midan from “terrorists”, the term it uses for the rebels.

“Our brave army forces have completely cleaned the area of Midan in Damascus of the remaining mercenary terrorists and have reestablished security,” state television said.

In Brussels, the European Union is preparing to freeze the assets of at least 26 Syrians close to Assad and readying plans to board vessels and aircraft suspected of supplying weapons to his regime.

Syria on Friday began the first day of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan amid a security forces ultimatum to “cleanse Damascus of terrorists”.

Activists have called for fresh anti-regime demonstrations after the regular weekly prayers under the slogan “The Ramadan of victory will be written in Damascus”.

The army on Thursday resorted to heavy armour in the capital for the first time, using tanks against the rebels.

Assad also appeared in public for the first time since Wednesday’s bombing, greeting his new defence minister on state television as he scrambled to shore up his battered prestige. His previous defence minister was killed by the bomb.

Violence is spiralling across the country, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported 302 people — 98 Syrian soldiers, 139 civilians and 65 rebels — killed on Thursday nationwide.

At the Bab al-Hawa frontier crossing with Turkey, rebels sacked the Syrian border post, which was bloodstained and riddled with bullets. They also looted Turkish lorries caught up in the battle.

Syrian soldiers had abandoned the site in the northwest province of Idlib, the scene of fierce fighting for months.

On Thursday, Iraq’s deputy interior minister said the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had seized control of all crossings along their common border.

“All the border points between Iraq and Syria are under the control of the Free Syrian Army,” Adnan al-Assadi told AFP by telephone.

Assadi said Iraqi border guards had seen FSA fighters seize a border outpost, detain a Syrian lieutenant colonel, and cut off his arms and legs. “Then they executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers.”

The account of the killings could not be independently verified.

Meanwhile at the United Nations, Russia and China used their powers as permanent Security Council members to block resolutions on Syria for the third time in nine months.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who had called on the council to impose “consequences” for the failure to carry out his peace plan for Syria, expressed disappointment that it had failed to reach agreement.

Washington condemned the “highly regrettable decision” of China and Russia to veto the UN resolution, with President Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney warning of “repercussions… in terms of how they’re viewed by the Syrian people.”

“There’s no doubt that Syria’s future will not include Bashar al-Assad. His days in power are numbered,” he warned.

Washington said the Security Council had “utterly failed” on Syria and that it would now work outside the council to confront Assad’s regime.

The White House also said that without the tougher mandate the vetoed text would have implied, there was no point in retaining UN military observers in Syria to monitor the non-implementation of Annan’s plan by Assad’s government.

Britain and Pakistan proposed rival resolutions extending the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) and, amid Council deadlock, a vote on both could be held on Friday, just hours before the end of the mission’s 90-day mandate.

Russia said on Friday it backs an unconditional 45-day extension of the observer mission.

The upsurge in fighting has sparked a new exodus of refugees.

Nearly 19,000 Syrians poured into Lebanon, a security official told AFP in Beirut, while Iraqi officials said thousands of Iraqi refugee families had fled home from Syria.

The Syrian military had given residents 48 hours to leave areas of the capital, as security forces fought rebels pushing their “Damascus Volcano” offensive.

The authorities said state funerals would be held in Damascus on Friday for the three regime stalwarts killed in Wednesday’s bombing.

Assad’s brother-in-law and one of the Syrian security apparatus’ hawks, Assef Shawkat, will be buried later in the western province of Tartus.

Daoud Rajha, who was defence minister, will be buried in his Christian town of Maalula near Damascus, and crisis cell chief Hassan Turkmani in northern Aleppo.

- AFP/al

24 March 2012 | 01:39:36 PM| Source: AFP

Syrian forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several regions as activists said thousands staged anti-regime protests. (AAP)

Syrian forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several regions as activists said thousands staged anti-regime protests and the European Union slapped sanctions on the country’s First Lady.

In Geneva on Friday, the UN Human Rights Council ordered a probe into violations in Syria to be extended, asking investigators to map out abuses since a deadly crackdown on protests in the country erupted in March 2011.
  
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was to travel this weekend to Moscow and Beijing, the two countries that have blocked Security Council action against Syria over the crackdown.
  
But he had no immediate plans to return to Damascus.
  
Adding to pressure on the regime, the EU on Friday agreed to sanction President Bashar al-Assad’s glamorous British-born wife Asma, along with his mother, sister and sister-in-law.
  
Diplomats in Brussels said EU foreign ministers had agreed an assets freeze and travel ban on the four women and eight other members of Assad’s entourage.
  
Asma Assad, whose parents live in Britain where she grew up, cannot be barred entry to the country, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
  
“But given that we are imposing an asset freeze on all of these individuals and a travel ban on other members of the same family and the regime, we are not expecting Mrs. Assad to try to travel to the United Kingdom at the moment.”
  
Assad himself was targeted last May 10, along with his younger brother Maher and four cousins.
  
Washington welcomed the EU’s decision.
  
“We are gratified that the EU has taken yet another step in tightening the noose on the Assad regime,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
  
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Syrians in the United States would be allowed to stay beyond their visas and avoid the risk of returning to their violence-torn country.
  
“Conditions in Syria have worsened to the point where Syrian nationals already in the United States would face serious threats to their personal safety if they were to return to their home country,” Napolitano said.
  
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators turned out Friday in the hot spots of anti-regime revolt across Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
  
At least 33 people were killed in violence nationwide, the Britain-based group said: 17 civilians, 13 soldiers and three army deserters.
  
Nine civilians died in districts in Homs hit by gunfire and rockets, it reported.
  
At least three deserters and a civilians were reported killed in fighting between regime forces and army deserters in Aazaz in the northern province of Aleppo near the Turkish border, the Observatory and activists said.
  
“Troops are bombing and helicopters flying overhead,” activist Mohammed Halabi told AFP in Beirut by telephone from the province. The fighting had been going on since midday Thursday, he said.
  
Aazaz, strategically positioned on the road to neighbouring Turkey, is a supply route for Free Syrian Army rebels.
  
Fierce clashes also erupted mid-afternoon between soldiers and deserters in the villages of Haritan and Anadan, between Aleppo and Aazaz, Halabi said. The Observatory said two civilians were killed in Anadan.
  
Troops shelled the two villages after deserters attacked a convoy of tanks headed for Aazaz, the activist said.
  
The state news agency SANA reported “several terrorists” killed in the Sermin region of Idlib and said a bomb under a bridge had killed an army engineer in the Aleppo region.
  
Videos posted online by activists showed protests in the southern province of Daraa, birthplace of the revolt that monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives.
  
UN human rights expert Yakin Erturk, meanwhile, told reporters in New York Friday that at least four Syrian brigadier generals had defected in recent weeks.
  
In diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed, the Security Council on Wednesday adopted a statement urging Assad and his foes to implement “fully and immediately” Annan’s peace plan.
  
The initiative calls for Assad to pull troops and heavy weapons out of protest hubs, a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire, access to all areas affected by the fighting and a UN-supervised halt to all clashes.
  
Annan’s spokesman said a team of technical experts had returned to Geneva after “three days of intensive talks with Syrian authorities on urgent steps to implement” the plan.
  
On Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned against any attempt to circumvent UN authority.
  
“There’s a need to eliminate any loopholes allowing (nations) to act in circumvention of the authority of the Security Council and use force without its approval,” Medvedev told a European security conference in Moscow.
  
The Security Council still awaited a formal Syrian response on Wednesday’s statement, but government daily Tishrin welcomed it.
  
Riyadh, Doha, Ankara “and other capitals which are enemies of Syria, and which wanted a military intervention… suffered a defeat on the international stage,” it said.
  
The opposition Syrian National Council poured scorn on the UN statement, saying it would give the regime more time to continue killing its own people.
  
burs/hkb/srm/jj/sr
DATELINE:DAMASCUS, March 24, 2012 (AFP) -

BRUSSELS, Feb 29 (KUNA) — Leaders of the 27-member European Union (EU) will discuss Syria and the wider region during their Thursday-Friday summit meeting in Brussels, said the President of the EU Council Herman van Rompuy Wednesday.
In his invitation letter to the EU leaders for the summit, he said that on Friday they will “exchange views on latest events in Syria and more globally the situation in the wider region one year after the start of the “Arab Spring”.
Van Rompuy said he will also use this opportunity to share with the EU leaders his assessment of the recent EU summits with China and India.
The summit will also take stock of preparations for the forthcoming G8 summit, G20 summit and UN “Rio+20” conference.
The first day of the meeting, Thursday, will focus on the economic and financial situation in Europe.
The EU leaders will also elect the President of the EU Council for the period from June 1, 2012 - November 30, 2014.
Observers says Van Rompuy, who is the first President of the EU Council, will be re-elected for a second term.

By ELLEN BARRY

Published: January 27, 2012

The United Nations estimates that more than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March, and among the countries that have called for Mr. Assad to step down are the United States, Turkey and Jordan, as well as the members of the European Union and the Arab League. But Russia remains a staunch defender, providing Damascus with a political lifeline as well as arms and ammunition.

Moscow entrenched itself as Mr. Assad’s political bulwark on Friday, declaring that it would, with China, oppose a Security Council resolution calling on Mr. Assad to step down. A deputy foreign minister, Gennadi Gatilov, told the Interfax news agency that the resolution was “doomed to failure” unless the demand for Mr. Assad’s ouster was dropped and a call for opposition forces to renounce violence was included.

Another deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, rejected Western criticism of continuing arms shipments to Mr. Assad’s government, including a freshly inked $550 million contract for fighter planes.

“I do not understand why we should justify ourselves for that, constantly blush, turn pale, be damp with sweat,” Mr. Ryabkov told the radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday. “We are acting within our rights.”

Russian political support has proved essential to the Assad government, said Peter Harling, a Syria specialist with the International Crisis Group. Statements of support from Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov are featured continuously by Syrian state news agencies, he said, offering reassurance that Mr. Assad’s government still has mighty allies.

“It is central to the regime’s narrative and key to the cohesiveness of the regime’s ranks,” Mr. Harling said. “They believe that the international community is divided. So Russians are providing cover for the regime to push forward with their approach. There is a strong belief that all doors are not closed.”

Russia has staked out this position for a variety of reasons that have little to do with the specifics of Syria’s political crisis, chief among them weapons exports, domestic politics and resentment over the Libyan campaign. It reflects a shift that has taken place as Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin prepares to return to the presidency, deeply distrustful of the West’s intentions both in Russia and in the Middle East. He has accused the United States of orchestrating uprisings in both regions.

“Theoretically, the Western bloc has a few more months of the Medvedev presidency,” said Yevgeny Y. Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow. “After that, Putin is a bigger realist than Medvedev, he has more experience, he is much more pragmatic. I don’t think he will have these ideas from the Medvedev side that opened the gate to this campaign in Libya.”

Libya is a particular grievance. Mr. Putin seethed over the aftermath of the United Nations resolution establishing what was supposed to be a no-fly zone in Libya, which China and Russia last March agreed not to veto. Many in the government contend that President Dmitri A. Medvedev was deceived by Western allies who then used the resolution to justify airstrikes to drive Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power.

“We were naïve and stupid,” said Mr. Satanovsky, an influential analyst. “The Chinese were the same. Trust this: That was the last mistake of such type.”

Another consideration is practical. Syria is a major customer of Russia’s state weapons exporters, who by one estimate have already lost as much as $10 billion in orders during the political turmoil of the Arab Spring and a missile contract with Iran that was shelved as a result of the “reset” with Washington. The military industry holds sway over a significant slice of Russian voters and “will be very angry at the ruling group” if further contracts are lost, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs.

“We have an election year here, and this time it is a more real election campaign. He is campaigning quite seriously,” Mr. Lukyanov said. “That means all groups of society are valuable, and the military industry is very angry over this chain of events.”

Russia has benefited from Syria’s isolation from the West over the years because it enjoys preferential access for its arms and petroleum industries. Syria places orders worth about $700 million a year, making it a “major, very important, high-priced client by Russian standards,” said Ruslan Aliyev, a defense specialist at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow research center. But Moscow wields little influence over Mr. Assad, he said.

This created problems for Moscow in 2006, when Israel, another Russian ally, found that Hezbollah fighters were using Russian-made weaponry that had been sold to Syria, in violation of Syria’s agreement with Russia. Mr. Aliyev called this “a weighty slap in the face.” Mr. Assad has also defied Russian counsel to “stop the hostilities and bloodshed.”

“It’s difficult to defend a person who does not want to cooperate with you and is not prepared to take advice from you,” Mr. Aliyev said.

Mr. Aliyev, who was present at meetings with American diplomats last week, said that Americans were convinced that Mr. Assad’s government would fall and advocated engaging with the opposition. Russian officials are “more pragmatic,” arguing that change will lead to “a civil war, followed by rampant violence and banditry and terrorism, as it happened in other countries,” he said.

Mr. Lavrov sent a clear signal last week that Russia would not intervene militarily in defense of Mr. Assad’s government.

Some Russian analysts warn that if Mr. Assad falls, it will lead to a broader war pitting Arab nations against Iran. Mr. Satanovsky said that Russia could see “maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of refugees coming from Iranian territory into Azerbaijan and Russia” if that were to occur, as well as ethnic violence against Christian minorities and the spread of terrorism. He said Russia supported not Mr. Assad, but stability.

“After Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Afghanistan, why should Russia once more look at all this with the idea that everything will be all right?” he said. “This is not a choice between good and bad, this is a choice between bad — which we have now — and terrible and apocalyptic.”