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In Syria, what does Russia want?
 Hussain Abdul-Hussain

Russian policy on Syria might seem planned and coherent, but a closer look shows that Moscow has no imagined end-game for Syria's unrest, and is rather improvising its stances as events unfold.

Moscow has a clear interest in the survival of the regime of President Bashar Assad, who is a major importer of Russia's arms. Syria reportedly buys ten percent of Russia's annual arms exports at a cost of $1 billion. In Libya, Russian arms makers lost close to $4 billion in contracts with the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi. Moscow is keen to prevent a repeat in Syria.

But arms sales may not be the only motive behind Russia's support for Assad. Perhaps Moscow fears that international intervention in Syria could emerge as an accepted model for the future. If Russians take to the streets en masse demanding an end to the long rule of their president-turned-prime-minister Vladimir Putin, now running for a third presidential term, the Kremlin might want to make sure that it can strangle any such movement without fear of the United Nations jumping on its back to protect protesters.

A third reason behind Moscow's obstruction of the world effort to stop Assad's brutal force against his citizens could be Russia's self-perception as heir to the glorious Soviet empire. Since Putin's accession to power in 2000, Moscow has always tried to show foreign policy muscle.

This posture has helped Putin awaken national chauvinism by rallying Russians around his leadership against mostly imagined foreign threats. With the Assad family being a former Soviet ally, and with western capitals supporting Assad's opponents, Russia might have seen in Syria an opportunity to stand up to the "imperial" West by preventing the downfall of another one of Moscow's old Arab friends and arms clients.

The Russian government has so far thrown its lot behind Assad. On October 4, it exercised its veto power to kill a UN Security Council resolution that would have denounced the Syrian government.

Moscow's initial support of Assad was based on its understanding that his forces could swiftly bring the uprising to an end. But days turned into weeks and weeks into months, during which Moscow might have concluded that Assad could be the wrong horse to back and that, instead, it should reach out to his opponents and show itself as the sponsor of peace between the two sides.

The Russian position has therefore undergone a noticeable evolution since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in mid-March. During the first weeks, Russia described the unrest as a domestic issue, calling on the world to respect Syrian sovereignty by staying away.

However, a surge in the number of deaths, standing at 5,000 by December meant that Russia could not make the Syrian crisis go away simply by claiming it a domestic issue.

Moscow realized that it should either come up with a solution to stop the bloodshed, or risk western capitals eventually imposing one. Russia therefore endorsed the Arab League initiat