[Dr. Aaron Lerner - President Vladimir Putin, citing the experience in
Afghanistan and Libya, has warned that, given the composition of the Syrian
opposition forces, that the West could very well find itself facing a worse
regime in Syria if Assad is toppled.]

Why Russia Won't Abandon Syria
Nikolas K. Gvosdev The National Interest June 29, 2012
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/why-russia-wont-abandon-syria-7140?page=show

After months of diplomatic exchanges, public shaming at the United Nations,
even a direct tête-à-tête between presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin
on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, the United States
has been unable to change the Russian position on Syria. Understanding why
the Russian side is so adamant in its support for the regime of Bashar
al-Assad could help in limiting the fallout generated by this ongoing
disagreement on the larger trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations.

Both Washington and Moscow share an aversion to revolutionary upheavals in
the region that threaten well-established interests. The relatively muted
U.S. response to some of the steps taken by the Egyptian military to limit
the powers and authority both of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament
and of the newly elected civilian president Mohamed Morsi reflects the
perspective that key U.S. objectives, including maintaining the security
relationship with Egypt and sustaining the peace treaty with Israel, are
better served by having the military act as a counterweight to the
Brotherhood. In some ways, what may emerge in Egypt is a version of the
bargain that operates in many of the pro-American "moderate" monarchies of
the region, where unelected kings and emirs retain the fail-safe levers of
power to ensure that elected institutions do not cross certain red lines.

As many commentators already have explained in detail, Russia has a number
of key interests in Syria, the main one being that Damascus is critical to
Moscow's ability to project any sort of power in the region via one of
Russia's most important military bases based outside the former Soviet
Union. The Russians have concluded that if Assad is overthrown, any
successor government will expel Russia from its facilities at Tartus. They
see no reason to accelerate this process or even join it.

Perhaps if the Syrian opposition had, early on, announced its adherence to
what might be termed the Guantanamo standard, things might have been
different. Despite his implacable anti-Americanism, Fidel Castro never
interfered with or abrogated the lease the United States has for the naval
facilities at Guantanamo Bay. An announcement by the Syrian opposition that
it was prepared to honor all contracts and arrangements of its predecessor
might have led Moscow to adopt a more neutral stance. Interestingly enough,
the opposition candidate in Venezuela, Henrique Capriles, has indicated that
if he wins the elections this fall, he would not automatically cancel the
deals concluded between Hugo Chávez and the Chinese and the Russians—part of
an effort to try to change their calculus that they must support Chávez
unconditionally to protect their interests. And the Russian government duly
noted how, even though it had abstained from the UN resolution used by NATO
as the basis for the air operation that ultimately helped to drive Muammar
el-Qaddafi from power, the Libyan Transitional Government openly questioned
whether a new Libya would honor the contracts the previous regime had
concluded with Russia. Certainly this helped to reinforce a view in the
Kremlin that there would be no benefit to Russia in backing away from its
support for Assad.

If this had been done early on, the Russians might have been persuaded to
support a Yemen-style transfer of power, which would have satisfied the U.S.
objective of seeing Assad removed from office and would have protected some
of Russia's key equities. But now, the window for that sort of arrangement
has ended. And it is important to note that Russia's perspective on the
Syrian revolution now is being shaped by events that have little to do with
the Middle East.

A consistent question posed by U.S. policy makers is the basis of the
loyalty the Kremlin is showing to Assad. Why can't Moscow simply "cut a
deal" with the revolutionary forces (assuming one could be brokered) and
switch sides? If the Syria conflict existed in isolation, perhaps. But the
steadfast support the Kremlin continues to provide to Assad—shielding the
regime against stronger UN sanctions and providing its security forces with
the wherewithal to try to suppress the uprising—is meant to reassure another
group of leaders: presidents in the post-Soviet space concerned with their
own successions.

At a bare minimum, Russia cannot afford to be complicit in any overthrow of
the Assad regime. Its support for the Annan plan was predicated on the
assumption that it would leave Assad in the driver's seat in terms of
charting Syria's political future. Keeping Assad's sovereign prerogatives
intact is essential.

This defense of the Syrian leader and his regime has as much to do with
reassuring Russian partners in other parts of the world, particularly in
Central Asia, that Moscow is prepared to stand by its friends and associates
even when things get difficult. This is particularly important in the former
Soviet space, where other countries are attempting to follow the Syrian
example of a "republican monarchy" and keep executive power within a ruling
family. Both Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan have been in office for more than two decades. Both are concerned
with ensuring a safe succession that will protect the interests of their
families and associates and want to mitigate the risk that a new regime
would seek to sacrifice the personnel and loyal servitors of its predecessor
as a way to cement its own power.

This is why there is no "silver bullet" argument that will convince Moscow
to change its perspective on the Syria issue. It also means that the likely
concessions that the West might offer in order to gain Russian support for
regime change would be insufficient. Given that the United States is not
going to make Russian acquiescence with U.S. preferences on Syria a litmus
test for the bilateral relationship, Russia has too much to lose, in terms
of sustaining its relationships with other potentially embattled leaders
around the world, by seemingly abandoning a trusted and reliable client.

So expect no major breakthroughs in the U.S.-Russian impasse over Syria.
=========================
Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a senior editor at The National Interest, is a professor
of national-security studies at the U.S. Naval War College. The views
expressed are entirely his own.