26/07/2012

It has become clear to many officials in Moscow that the Assad regime cannot restore the pre-rebellion status quo in Syria, forcing them to consider backing away from a longtime client.

The phone line from Moscow to Syria is shaky, giving off static and a faint echo, and it does not help that Russian official Andrei Klimov sounds exhausted. He is cagey about his exact location in Syria, saying only that he is “a few kilometers away from the action.” That could mean any of a number of towns and cities where armed revolutionaries have been fighting the forces of President Bashar Assad for almost a year and a half. In that time, thousands of Syrian civilians have been killed, and dozens of Russian diplomats, officials and military strategists have been flying in and out of Damascus on various pretexts — as election observers, as peace-brokers or morale-boosters for the regime. Some Russians even ostensibly enter Syria as holiday makers. “Let’s just say I’m here for myself, in a personal capacity” says Klimov, who is the vice chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s parliament. Perhaps, but the purpose of his trip this week was also to figure out the regime’s options in the conflict, and Russia’s. “There don’t seem to be any good ones,” Klimov says.

Any hopes that Assad’s forces could bludgeon the rebellion into submission have started to look delusional. Even Russia, one of Assad’s oldest and most stubborn allies, is becoming resigned to his downfall. “I don’t think anyone in the world, including Assad himself, seriously believes that he will be able to control the country for years to come,” says Klimov. “In my view, the ideal situation is if Assad gives control over to someone else, who can maintain the secular nature of the regime and make sure Syria will not become a troublemaker in the region.”

(PHOTOS: The Syrian Arms Race: Photographs by Yuri Kozyrev)

If the Kremlin agrees with this assessment, it has not yet made public that conclusion. President Vladimir Putin has stuck consistently to the view that both sides of the conflict need to negotiate a resolution on their own, and he even suggested on July 23 that forcing Assad to step down would only make matters worse. “The opposition and the current leadership could simply switch sides, with one taking control and the other becoming the opposition, and the civil war will continue for nobody knows how long,” he told a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti.

But a little further down the diplomatic hierarchy, the last few months have brought a significant change in tone. Just take Vitaly Churkin, Russian ambassador to the U.N., who in February had mounted a rousing defense of Russia’s refusal to turn its back on the Syrian government. “If you are our ally, we are not going to turn around overnight and say, ‘Well, you know, we’ve had good relations with you over the years, but now, thanks, no thanks, deal with your problems, we are not going to do anything about it,’” Churkin had told U.S. talk show host Charlie Rose. That was a veiled rebuke of Washington’s refusal to prop up its longstanding ally, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, during the revolution that overthrew him last year. “It’s not our style,” Churkin said at the time. But on Tuesday, July 24, he spoke to Charlie Rose again, and the host pressed him on whether the Russian-Syrian “friendship” had changed in the last six months. This time, Churkin gave a deep sigh before answering. Assad “is not our nephew, you know,” he said. “He’s not related to us, and we’re not attached to his regime in any particular way.”

Like a delinquent younger brother, Syria has nonetheless been causing Russia a great deal of embarrassment. Rarely can a senior Russian official make a public appearances these days, especially in the West, without being grilled on the massacre of civilians in Syria, on Russian arms sales to Assad, or on Russia’s repeated veto of U.N. sanctions against the regime. During a brief press conference on Monday, two of the four questions for Putin were about Syria, and he was visibly annoyed at having to repeat himself, giving his answers in a blunt staccato. On Tuesday, Moscow again had to distance itself from Syrian blunders, after Syria’s foreign ministry spokesman suggested the regime might use chemical weapons, prohibited under international humanitarian law, if it faced attack from abroad. On its website, the Russian Foreign Ministry then gave Damascus a curt reminder to “unwaveringly uphold its international obligations.”

(MORE: After Assad: What’s Next for the Future of Syria?)

Some Russian military officials have also been annoyed by what they see as Assad’s indecisiveness in fighting the rebels. Konstantin Sivkov, a military hawk who served as a strategist for the Russian General Staff between 1995 and 2007, visited Syria in May, ostensibly to monitor the parliamentary elections but mostly to meet with officials. Sivkov was surprised, he says, with how “gentle” Assad has been in crushing the revolution. “Believe me, some of our guys have told Bashar to adopt much harsher methods, carpet bombing, total destruction,” Sivkov told TIME after returning to Moscow. “If that approach was chosen in Syria, there would be no rebels left after one week, and everyone would be happy.”

Instead, Moscow has been put in the awkward position of having to invite the rebels over for talks, which gave perhaps the clearest signal that Russia is looking beyond Assad’s rule. On June 11, a delegation from the Syrian National Council had an audience with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who tried to convince them to negotiate with Assad. But the SNC delegates also felt as if the Russians were sizing them up. “They are looking for partners in the opposition,” Bassma Kodmani, the SNC’s foreign affairs officer told TIME afterward. One of the senior Russian diplomats even tried to express some sympathy with the rebel cause, says Monzer Makhous, an SNC member who took part in the talks. “During one of the breaks, he leaned over to me and said, ‘We know Assad is like Stalin, we know,’” Makhous recalls. To him that only meant one thing: “Some of them are ready, even eager, to abandon him.”

(VIDEO: A Syrian Soldier Claims to Have Witnessed Atrocities)

At the very least, Russia is tired of being looked upon as Assad’s protector. When rumors emerged in the Western press last week that Assad and his family might flee to Moscow, the Russian reaction was furious. “That is not on the table,” U.N. ambassador Churkin fumed on Wednesday during the interview with Rose. Russia has in the past given asylum to the families of embattled despots such as former Serbia president Slobodan Milosevic or former Kyrgyz strongman Askar Akaev, but the Assads are clearly too toxic to receive any such invitations.

Asked whether Russia might take him in, Klimov, the parliamentarian, finally raises his voice over the telephone line from Syria. “Why not Australia,” he demands. “Why don’t they give their fair contribution to the cause of international peace?” Russia has enough image problems as it is, Klimov says, and granting asylum to Assad’s family now “would be piled on top of Russia’s list of supposed sins.” On top of that, anyone that succeeds Assad “will despise Russia 100 times more if we give [him] safe haven,” adds Klimov.

So, much like the rest of the world, Russia is left to hope against hope that Assad will simply agree to step down. That does not mean, however, that Russia will join the rest of the world in pressuring to do so. The only one who can make such a drastic shift in Russian policy is Putin, and he has not caught the changing winds climbing up through his hierarchy. Last week, Russia and China used their veto power in the U.N. Security Council to block sanctions against Assad for the third time. This brought down another wave of condemnation from the West, but Putin did not give an inch in his rhetoric. “At home, this stand-off with the West is great for his image,” says Nikolay Zlobin, head of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in Washington. Putin’s core electorate still reveres him as a one-man counterweight to the arrogance of the U.S., Zlobin says, and Putin is prepared to suffer a lot more isolation to maintain that image at home. But putting aside domestic Russian politics, “the hope is that some power vacuum will emerge [in Syria] into which Russia might squeeze,” says Zlobin. “So far, that strategy hasn’t worked out so well.” Not for Russia, and certainly not for Syria.

MOSCOW, July 18, 2012: Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama were unable to resolve their differences on Syria in a phone talk Wednesday following a Damascus bomb attack, the Kremlin said.

“Differences in approaches remain that concern practical steps in achieving a settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

A bomb struck at the heart of Syria’s senior command Wednesday, killing at least three of President Bashar al-Assad’s top brass in an attack claimed by rebels, amid fighting in the capital city.

The first such deadly attack against Assad’s inner core came ahead of a showdown Thursday between the West and Russia over a UN Security Council resolution calling for sanctions against Damascus.

Russia has threatened to veto the measure and proposed its own draft that does not provide for punitive measures against its Soviet-era ally while extending a current UN monitoring mission there by another three months.

Western powers had refused to back Russia’s initial proposal or an amended version submitted by Moscow at the United Nations on Tuesday.

The Kremlin spokesman provided few details of the phone call except to say that it was initiated by Obama and included a “detailed discussion of Syria in which the recent escalation was noted”.

Peskov said the conversation showed that the two leaders “have a coinciding view of the general satiation in Syria (and agree) on the end goal of reaching a settlement.”

But the spokesman made no mention of Russia’s refusal to back firmer action against Assad or of Obama’s insistence of imposing sanctions against his regime should it fail to comply with the most urgent points of a peace plan drafted by mediator Kofi Annan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

It’s not often that an international conference produces a pleasant surprise. But the 103 nations that attended a conference of Friends of the Syrian People in Paris yesterday did so.

The difference started with French President Francois Hollande’s inaugural address — where he described the crisis in Syria as “a threat to international security and peace.”

In diplomatic parlance, that’s a coded demand for the issue to be considered under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter — which allows for military intervention.

Hollande, in short, means to stop the Friends of the Syrian People from continuing to dance around the issue, as they did at previous gatherings in Tunis and Istanbul.

Hollande: French prez hints at military intervention.

To be sure, that doesn’t mean that the nations represented in Paris are ready to act in Syria as many did in Libya. But the acknowledgment of military intervention as an option is in itself important.

The conference also ended ambiguity over the role that the despot Bashar al-Assad might take in any transition to a new Syrian regime.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s “road map” would give Assad a veto on who is included in a transition government. But the Paris conference showed a growing consensus that Assad must be scripted out of any negotiated settlement. Even if he’s to be temporarily replaced by one of his deputies, Assad would have to step aside before a deal is sealed.

Russia and China, two of Assad’s last remaining supporters, declined their invitations to Paris. The third, Iran, wasn’t even invited. All three appear to be having doubts about the wisdom of supporting an unpopular leader who may also be doomed.

Russian and Chinese spokesmen now claim that neither Moscow nor Beijing is “committed to Assad as such.” As for Tehran, the mullahs seem to be preparing to ditch Assad before they host a summit of the nonaligned nations this fall.

Many nonaligned leaders, including new Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi, have indicated they’ll boycott the summit if Iran doesn’t alter its pro-Assad stance. If Tehran continues to back Assad, it could end up with high-level representation from only two Arab states, Sudan and Lebanon, at its summit.

Russia now seems a classic opportunist; it’s looking for ways to prevent the United States and its allies from scoring a point by helping remove Assad from power. But Moscow also knows that courting Assad risks antagonizing a majority of the 22 Arab states.

So the Kremlin is desperately looking for a way to portray itself on the side of change in Syria without actually producing the kind of change that Western powers wish for.

Much work remains. But don’t be surprised if Russia takes the lead in selling the idea of a “dignified departure” to Assad. In Yemen, a similar deal was sold to President Ali Abdullah Salih by his principal protector, Saudi Arabia.

What is needed urgently is an end to the bloodshed. And that can’t be achieved while Assad has a central role.

Meanwhile, the first high-level defection from Assad’s inner circle has increased the possibility of “change within the regime.” Brig.-Gen. Manaf Tlas, 43, is a former commander in the Presidential Guard and one of Assad’s closest personal friends. His father, Gen. Mustafa Tlas, was a founder of the Ba’athist regime and served as chief of staff and then defense minister for more than two decades under Bashar’s father, Hafiz al-Assad.

The younger Tlas flew to Paris yesterday; he claims he decided to break with the regime after Assad’s younger brother, Maher, also a brigadier-general, ordered a massacre in the central Syrian town of Rastan — the seat of the Tlas, a leading Sunni clan.

Tlas’ defection ends the myth of solidarity among the despot’s “inner circle. In Damascus, people are already wondering who will be next.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fresh_hope_for_an_end_to_syria_pain_Gv8bnk4d1UVOtllCZytnlO#ixzz1ztzlBQln

By Michael Weiss

What’s the point of diplomacy no one believes in? The Emir of Qatar has given Kofi Annan’s six-point plan for bringing peace to Syria and opening political “dialogue” a three per cent chance of success, which is several points higher than I’d give it. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, sounds fed up with the regime of Bashar al-Assad: “They have lied to the international community, lied to their own people. And the biggest fabricator of the facts is Assad himself.” The Kremlin counters that this pessimism is the real catalyst for ongoing violence; this as opposed to, say, the regular consignments of Russian armaments dispatched to Assad for killing people. “There are countries – there are outside forces – that are not interested in the success of current UN Security Council efforts,” complained Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, subtly echoing the regime’s propaganda narrative of a “conspiracy” against Syria. Many have been begging the United States and Britain and France to make this conspiracy real for some time now, lest the slow-motion creation of a failed state bordering Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan succeeds. Instead, six unarmed UN observers have just arrived in the country, and stand a fair chance of being shot themselves if they venture into Homs or Idleb, where helicopter gunships and artillery shells are still being used against civilian populations.

I spoke this morning to Saif al-Arabe, an activist based in Homs affiliated with the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC). He told me that he woke up to spy planes flying overhead and a barrage of shelling, particularly of the Khalidiya and Bayada neighbourhoods. “There are three sources of the mortar fire,” Saif said. “The military factor in Al-Wah-ir, the ancient castle near the Old City and Wadi al-Dahab, a pro-regime neighbourhood.” Saif sent along a few videos, too. This one shows 14 mortars falling on Homs within the span of four minutes:

I asked Saif which party started the violence after the brief lull last Thursday when the ceasefire euphemistically described as ‘fragile’ or ‘tenuous’ was said to have taken effect. Were Free Syrian Army units attacking regime forces or did the regime fire first? He replied that the FSA had abided by the ceasefire: “I can emphasize to you that they did not start any attack on Assad’s forces, which are shelling all the neighbourhoods randomly. But FSA elements are now trying to stop any storming of the city by Assad’s gangs.” The notorious shabbiha, which the regime has employed as death-and-rape squads since the start of the uprising, are manning military checkpoints alongside army personnel, as displayed in this video:

So why is the regime bombarding Homs again? Saif said the reason was simple: residents who fled Baba Amr after the month-long siege there last February mainly wound up in other Homs neighbourhoods such as al-Qarabees and al-Kusr. And so these, too, must be now pummelled. “There are no cool districts in Homs,” Saif said. “All areas are hot.”

And as in Baba Amr months ago, food and water is scarce and electricity is cut for most of the day. Field hospitals are suffering severe shortages of medicine and equipment. They’re staffed by civilian volunteers, not doctors.

Only a sadist or a fool would call this a truce.

By HALA DROUBI

Published: March 24, 2012

Those officials had been encouraged by a United Nations vote last week in which Russia and China, after previously blocking Security Council action on Syria, joined a statement supporting an attempt to broker a cease-fire.

But on Saturday — a day before scheduled talks in Moscow with a United Nations envoy — a senior Kremlin adviser indicated that Russia continues to have a sharply different view than the United States and other Western countries, placing the main burden to stop the fighting on opposition forces, rather than the Syrian government.

“The main thing is to convince the Syrian opposition to come to the negotiating table with representatives of the authorities, and to achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis,” the adviser, Sergei E. Prikhodko, told the Itar-Tass news agency.

That view contrasts with the reactions of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the British foreign secretary, who responded to the Security Council vote by urging the Syrian government to act first and immediately pull back its forces from population centers, echoing the text of the statement.

While the uprising last year started with peaceful protests, army defectors and others have since taken up arms against the government after months of a brutal crackdown.

On Saturday, Syrian troops intensified a renewed attack against the beleaguered central city of Homs, activists said. The city was the site of a major offensive earlier this year that heavily damaged the restive neighborhood of Baba Amr, but had been calmer in recent weeks.

The government had said that assault had pacified the city, but many opposition fighters appeared to have just moved to other neighborhoods. On Saturday, activists reported that troops continued an assault on the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh that had started last week.

Omar Idilbi, with the Local Coordinating Committees, an activist group, said that Khaldiyeh was one of several neighborhoods being shelled. His group put the number of dead in the city from Saturday’s fighting at 24, out of 45 killed Saturday throughout Syria.

“There is not one neighborhood in Homs that doesn’t have members of the F.S.A. in it, even Baba Amr,” he said, referring to the loose-knit rebel militias, the Free Syrian Army. “That’s why the shelling continues.”

Abo Mohammed, an activist in Khaldiyeh reached through Skype, said: “There are kids here, and they’re seeing the dead bodies on the streets. You can’t hide them anymore.”

As has been true since the start of the conflict, reports are difficult to confirm, since the country has severely restricted entry by foreign reporters.

Troops also continued their attempts to flush rebels from areas north of Homs, entering the town of Saraqeb in Idlib Province. The London-based Syrian Observatory, another activist group, said tanks had entered the city and troops were arresting residents.

An activist in Turkey, who goes by the name Menhal and who recently fled Saraqeb, said people in the town reached by phone said it was bombarded by tank fire. “The situation is horrible,” he said by telephone. “I don’t know what more to say. They are looting stores and destroying them, burning houses, and there are many wounded people, and God, many wounded kids, many wounded kids.”

The diplomatic efforts to end the violence are expected to continue Sunday, when Kofi Annan, the special representative of the United Nations and the Arab League, is scheduled to meet with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, and its foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. Mr. Annan is then expected to continue to China for more talks.

Mrs. Clinton has sought to portray Russia’s backing of the United Nations Security Council statement in support of Mr. Annan’s mission as an important shift, demonstrating new international unity.

“The Council has now spoken with one voice,” Mrs. Clinton said Wednesday, calling for the pullback of government forces and the beginning of a Syrian-led political process “that will lead to a democratic transition.”

But the comments from the Kremlin on Saturday suggested that there was still a rift, and that Russia would continue to oppose efforts to oust Mr. Assad, its longtime ally.

The Kremlin adviser, Mr. Prikhodko, rather than focusing on Mr. Assad, said Russia believed that the violence could only be stopped by ending foreign support for the Syrian opposition.

He said that at the meeting with Mr. Annan on Sunday, Mr. Medvedev “will present our basic approach to the problem of the cease-fire and violence in Syria, which would be difficult to do without putting an end to the external fueling and political support of the armed opposition.”

* Russia hedges its bets on Syrian leader Assad’s fate

* Moscow hopes to hold influence in diplomacy and Syrian transition

* For Putin, ensuring Russia’s voice is heard and curbing Western clout are crucial

By Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW, March 21 (Reuters) - One part public relations, one part cold calculation: Russia’s sharper tone toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is calculated to improve Moscow’s image after months shielding him from censure and ensure the Kremlin a strong diplomatic role regardless of whether he stays in power.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took aim at Assad in an interview broadcast on Tuesday, saying Syria’s leadership had ignored Russia’s warnings and made “very many mistakes” that helped drag the country to the brink of civil war.

The tough tone is part of a growing Russian effort to distance itself from Assad, whose government is blamed by many Western and Arab countries for violence the United Nations says has killed more than 8,000 civilians since a crackdown on pro-democracy protests began in March 2011.

On Wednesday, Russia supported a U.N. Security Council statement backing U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s mission to end the violence, in a show of unity with the United States and Europe.

Moscow and Beijing had previously vetoed two Western-backed resolutions supported by Arab states.

“Clearly Russia doesn’t want to be seen as Assad’s last line of defence,” said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think tank.

Russia has not budged on its most adamant demand: that Assad must not be pushed out by foreign powers using the Security Council to promote “regime change”, as President-elect Vladimir Putin and other top officials say happened last year in Libya.

But the criticism, and support for the statement, are signs that Russia is hedging its bets about Assad’s fate and wants as strong a hand as possible in shaping Syria’s future in the event that he is forced out.

Putin may have calculated that a strong role in a peace settlement, and a chance for some sway in a post-Assad Syria, is worth more than close ties with a leader who could be doomed.

“Russia will not be focused on keeping Assad in power for the sake of keeping Assad in power,” said Trenin.

HIGH STAKES

The U.N. statement is not binding, and Moscow bought time for Assad by negotiating the removal of a specific one-week deadline for the government to comply with the council’s demands or face potential “further steps”, which Russia could block.

It also leaves plenty of room for Syria’s government and the Kremlin to blame Assad’s opponents for continued violence, and includes no direct call for Assad to step aside to make way for a political dialogue - a condition Russia said was unacceptable.

By cementing Annan’s central role in peace efforts, Russia may hope to keep the issue close to the United Nations, where it has veto power in the Security Council - and stem any efforts by Western and Gulf Arab nations to seize the initiative.

If Assad does go, Russia would face a huge challenge in winning over his opponents, angered by Russia’s refusal to push for his ouster and by its vetoes of two resolutions condemning his government for the bloodshed.

The stakes are high. Syria has bought billions of dollars worth of Russian arms and hosts a supply and maintenance facility on the Mediterranean coast that is Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

The Kremlin may hope to steer Syria toward a transition with political change superficial enough to strengthen Moscow’s hope of maintaining strong ties with Syria, its firmest foothold in the Middle East.

The intensity of the conflict in Syria means the time when that was possible may have passed, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.

But he said that Russia had used its firm stance in recent months “to tell the West and Arab countries very clearly and decisively that … Russia’s position must be heeded.”

PUTIN FACTOR

That was crucial for Putin, who is now prime minister and returns to the Kremlin for a six-year presidential term in May.

Facing protests at home, he made accusations of U.S. and NATO meddling abroad a theme of his campaign, and had sharply criticised the March 2011 Security Council resolution that authorised NATO military intervention in Libya.

Russia let that resolution pass by abstaining. He accused NATO nations of overstepping their mandate and using the green light from the Security Council to back rebels who drove Gaddafi from power.

While Lavrov’s language was strong, Russia’s insistence that it is not backing Assad is nothing new. Russia has repeatedly said its stance has been driven by the desire to uphold international law, protect a sovereign state from outside interference and avert civil war, not by self-interest.

Putin rarely spoke of the Syrian conflict until recent weeks, and when he did it was to say that Assad was no ally and Russia had no special relationship with Syria.

In the radio interview, Lavrov displayed cool indifference to the man he met last month on a visit to Damascus.

Asked whether it would be better for Assad to resign and leave Syria for Moscow or Belarus than to end up hiding like Gaddafi, he said that “nobody is inviting him to Moscow” and that it was “up to Assad” and the Syrian people to decide his political future.

Russia is still not flinching in the face of Western and Arab pressure to change its stance on the Syria conflict and its defiance may yet increase as Vladimir Putin heads back to the Kremlin.

Western powers have queued up to tell Putin it is high time, after his crushing election victory, for Moscow to start exerting pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s regime and support sanctions over the bloody opposition crackdown.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is also heading to Cairo on Saturday for crunch talks with foreign ministers of Arab countries who have been bitterly critical of Russia’s intransigence.

Russia has offered the occasional tantalising glimpse of a harder public tone towards the Assad regime’s use of military force against protestors but so far there has been no hint of a shift in its policy.

The Russian foreign ministry has already sternly warned the West not to indulge in “wishful thinking” by expecting its position to change after the election and saying its policy was not determined by “electoral cycles”.

Lavrov appeared this week to caution against expecting a breakthrough deal at the Cairo meeting which he described as “an important opportunity for an all-round analysis of the situation.”

“I do not think that new initiatives are needed — there have been enough of them,” he said.

Putin’s impending return to the Kremlin in May is hardly auspicious for the prospects of a rapprochement between Russia and the West on the issue, given the reputation of the ex-KGB agent for needling his Cold War era foes.

“Russia’s position on Syria after the elections is perhaps only going to get tougher,” said Yevgeny Satanovsky, head of the Institute for Middle East research.

Outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev, who tried to “reset” the prickly relationship between Russia and the United States, as recently as October bluntly called on Assad to carry out reforms or quit.

But Russia’s position has since hardened substantially, with the more moderate Medvedev now all but silent on foreign policy issues as he prepares to cede the Kremlin to Putin at a May 7 inauguration.

“I do not think that Russia’s position on Syria will change after the elections,” said Boris Dolgov of the Middle East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Russia’s position is clear against the inadmissibility of foreign intervention.”

Russia is haunted by the ousting of its ally Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi after a NATO-led air campaign that Moscow initially allowed to go ahead — an issue that sparked one of the few public clashes between Putin and Medvedev.

Syria is still a major arms client and regional ally of Moscow, which has kept strong ties with Damascus going back to the alliance between the Soviet Union and Assad’s father and predecessor Hafez al-Assad.

Russia has in recent weeks called on the Syrian government to halt the military action but — without exception — has always balanced this with a similar call on the opposition to stop fighting.

Putin last week said Russia had “no special relationship” with the Syrian regime but accused the West of worsening the crisis by helping arm the rebels and putting pressure on Assad.

A call for a halt to violence “from whichever source it may come” has now become a familiar phrase in Russia’s diplomatic lexicon and repeated like a mantra as Moscow distances itself from the West’s support of the rebels.

Lavrov said on March 5 that Russia agreed with the need to “strongly demand” that the Syrian government halt military activity in cities.

But he said it was unrealistic to expect that the Syrian government forces would pull out only to let the opposition occupy the territories which they had left — something Russia clearly fears could lead to regime change.

James Nixey, research fellow at Chatham House in London wrote in a report on Russia under the new Putin presidency: “It is curious that Russia supports a regime with a presumably short life expectancy, against the tide of events.”

Syria is another instance of Western sympathy for despotic regimes.

Nancy Pelosi and Bashar Al-Assad meet in Syria in 2007.

By Mona Charen 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a firm statement to the Syrian elite this week, urging them to overthrow the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. “The longer you support the regime’s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor,” she advised.

Only now? Only after thousands of men, women, and children have been murdered, tens of thousands wounded, and countless homes destroyed by artillery shells has the Obama team finally shed its illusions about the Syrian regime?

A mere eleven months ago, when peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Dara and other cities were met with bullets, Secretary Clinton referred to Assad as a “reformer.” She was not alone. Last year, Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle visited Assad and declared him indispensable for a “constructive solution” to the Middle East’s problems. A leading German think tank, which advises the foreign ministry, called Assad a “modernizer.”

Rare is the sceptered thug who does not attract fawning admiration from some in the free and democratic West. Fidel Castro was the darling of the smart set in the 1960s, and Che Guevara, one of his “wet work” assistants, adorns t-shirts worldwide to this day. Sean Penn is a shill for Hugo Chavez, and Robert Scheer had admiring things to say about Kim Il-Sung.

The more repressive and vicious the regime, the more some in the West will strain to find benign intentions in their leaders. One after another of the old Soviet general-secretaries was hailed, when he first ascended the greasy pole of Kremlin politics, as a “moderate.” Yuri Andropov, we were assured, loved American jazz, good Scotch, and “cynical political jokes with an anti-regime cast.” He went out of his way to meet with dissidents, we were advised. Perhaps he was drunk on Chivas Regal when he shot down civilian airliner KAL 007.

Similarly, when Syrian dictator Hafez Al-Assad (the butcher of Hama) died and was replaced by his son Bashar, the New York Times offered a highly sympathetic portrait of the “shy, young doctor.” The Times noted that expectations of the younger Assad were high, because, in the words of a member of the Syrian parliament, “he’s young and open and wants to give more liberty and democracy.”

Well, it may be churlish to begrudge people their optimism. But Assad has wielded absolute power in Syria for twelve years, and not a single reform has materialized. Quite the contrary. Even before the current bloodbath began, Syria was responsible for arming and protecting Hezbollah, assassinating Lebanese premier Rafik Al-Harriri, cooperating closely with Iran and North Korea, and sending terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans.

None of that prevented Hollywood’s glamour couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, from visiting with the Assads to discuss their “refugee work.” Just-released photos captured rock star and “human rights” campaigner Sting and his wife enjoying a good laugh with the Assads in 2008. Vogue magazine, apparently immune to shame, ran a fawning profile of the dictator’s wife, “a rose in the desert.” “Asma al-Assad,” Vogue told its readers, “is glamorous, young, and very chic — the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.” Along with fetching views of Asma, Vogue featured shots of Bashar playing on the floor with his children.

When images of bleeding and dead children — shot by Assad’s troops — began to cascade out of Syria, Vogue quietly removed the piece from its website.

Then-speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Assad in 2007 (against the wishes of the Bush administration) and came away satisfied with his cooperation. “We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process.” In this, she was echoing a sentiment often expressed by former secretary of state James A. Baker, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, who argued that the key to peace in the Middle East was to “flip Syria.”

But no visitor was more enthusiastic about Bashar Assad than President Obama’s informal envoy, Senator John Kerry, who made six visits to Damascus between 2009 and 2011. In 2010, he said “Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” Even after the tanks rolled into cities and began blasting away civilian demonstrators, Kerry stuck to his self-delusion: “My judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it. . . . ”

The “shy doctor” became a cold killer. Those who, without a particle of evidence, persuaded themselves that he was ever anything else, were useful idiots.

— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.

The bombardment of Homs this month prompted talk of Syria’s “Benghazi moment” - when Western, and Arab, powers would feel compelled to intervene as they did in Libya. (Reuters)

By Alastair Macdonald
REUTERS LONDON