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Jun 21, 2012 6:00 am | BY Fred Weir | Global Post

Even reliable Putin critics in Moscow see things differently: “We do not have the slightest romantic illusion
that something that comes after Assad will be better. We see a religious war shaping up in Syria, and across the
region — Sunni against Shia — and we want no part of it.”



MOSCOW — As Syria's uprising against Bashar al-Assad deteriorates into a potentially nation-destroying civil war, most
of the diplomatic discourse has been dominated by a high-stakes blame-game between Russia and the West over who is
most at fault for the horrific massacre and mayhem.

So far Russia has been losing this rhetorical battle. But the Kremlin insists that its case transcends mere self-interest,
and points the way back to a world governed by the rule of law.

Moscow's community of foreign policy experts — many of whom routinely excoriate the Kremlin — seem uncommonly
united in support of Russia’s stance on Syria. They argue that the Kremlin is adhering to a conservative set of international
values, based on respect for national sovereignty and the right of Syria's people to sort out their own future.

The West, they claim, is out of legal bounds and pursuing its own geopolitical interests thinly disguised as a humanitarian
"responsibility to protect" in a manner that is reckless, hypocritical and — perhaps the unkindest cut — incompetent.

Russian experts dish out examples of botched Western interventions going back to the 1999 Kosovo war, which Moscow
helped to resolve after receiving NATO's assurances that Kosovo would never be given independence; a few years later
Kosovo was made independent. The long and inconclusive US occupation of Iraq and the ongoing imbroglio in Afghanistan
are cited as examples of "making things worse."

But uppermost in Russian minds is the UN-authorized NATO intervention in Libya last year, which Moscow acquiesced to as
a measure to protect civilians, only to see it morph into a full rebel campaign for regime change backed by Western air power.

"We've been lied to repeatedly; not a single promise the West has made to us in the past two decades has been honored,"
says Sergei Markov, vice president of the Plekhanov Economic University in Moscow.

"We've learned to take our own counsel on problems like Syria. What we see is an extraordinarily difficult situation that
threatens to explode into a massive bloodbath. Nobody likes Assad, but if you just remove him the entire state will collapse
with awful consequences. We wish we could have an intelligent conversation with Western leaders about this, but so far that
hasn't proved possible," he says.

Russia's primary argument for its position is that it conforms with international law. Sovereignty is the supreme principle,
Russian officials say, and Western attempts to change those rules have not led to good results anywhere.