First there is the question of: Why would Russia protect Bashar al Assad?

The reason is partly that Syria is an old friend of Moscow, as to why they are protecting Assad in part, if its also the case that Moscow has a more negative, some would say realistic, perspective on what political change in the Middle East is going to look like in the long run.

Putin's statements at the beginning of the Arab Spring reflect a certain line of thinking in Moscow, and policy too, in which his total contempt for the idea of Africans and Arabs ever being governed by anything but tyrants or Muslim fanatics has to be taken seriously as to Russian interpretations of American actions.

As the Arab Spring started to make Gaddafi wobble, Putin was pretty open in basically saying, "You Americanets know every bit as well as we Russians that here is no way African or Arabs will be anything but half-civilized, so cut the crap about democracy, and this sure looks like more neocon attempts to take over the Middle East and call it Mom, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet, and my answer to that is nyet."

The reason that matters is that when we talk about democracy and human rights, which is despite all the American Left's protestations to the contrary a very important and ongoing part of American foreign policy, the Russians think that we are full of crap, masking our own ambitions behind pleasant sounding hypocrisies but at the point ultimately of a gun.

Since we're not actually totally full of it on that point of a democracy and human rights, even if there's rather a lot of hypocrisy and mixed motives thrown in, it actually is a dangerous source of miscommunication with Moscow.

Since however the Russians, in the circles that matter, are not likely to ever take our statements on such matters at face value, we have to deal with things as they are, which raises the question of: What to do about Russia protecting Bashar Al Assad?

Plan all the way to the end is a good law of power, which like with Gaddafi and Saddam, means always asking the question: What would post-Assad Syria look like?

So far, so good in Libya, save for the Libyan Touaregs in Mali, but that's not something we're likely to lose mcuh sleep over, as one or two B-52 strikes would solve the Libyan Touaregs in Mali problem quietly, but if we want regime change in Mali too...., if the Saddam experience is a warning that things can get... messy when one topples a regime, even one that's not very lovable, on the surface.

Sryia has an awful lot of similarities to Iraq, part of why the Assads were such enemies of Saddam, if later frenemies, when Assad realized that W. Bush wasn't joking about regime change with Saddam, if a little too late to form the super outlaw coalition of Syria, Iraq, and Iran versus Captain America.

There is the Sunni-Shia thing going on, if Allawi are bastardized Shia in the eyes of some Sunni, therefore even worse.

As to the similarities to keep one's eyes open to in Syria viz Iraq, there's the Kurdish issue going on, just like in Iraq, and just like in Iraq, there's other issues between Turkey and the target for potential regime change too, plus, there are definitely chemical WMD in Syria, like Russian provided Super VX gas.

Spasiba. Of course, on the flip side of that, Bashar's WMD means we can go anytime we want too, which was the upside of what Bush did with Saddam, as to credible threats.

On the brighter side of things, maybe everyone in this picture can learn something from the rather different fates of Muammar Gaddafi and Yemeni President Saleh.

The latter is chilling out here, and won't be dragged from a crowd with a bullet in his head.

The South of France with total immunity, even Socchi, and a decent sized bank account probably looks good to Saif Qadhafi right now, if he wasn't in sone tenth rate rat and flea ridden prison gettting violated daily by Berber goatherders.

That's a pretty good model as to the Yemeni President for Bashar al Assad, with an Arab League observer force, and it very clear that no territory changes hands, and it sure beats a fight to the finish in a state with VX on missiles, although if anyone ever loads those things up, presumably bad things would happen from various mobile weapons platforms surrounding Mr. Assad.

finis