In the face of increasingly harsh criticism from the West, Russia is holding firm in its opposition to international intervention in Syria, warning the US and other nations against any temptation to resort to actions like the NATO airstrikes in Libya that helped topple Muammar Gaddafi. “I strongly hope that the United States and other nations will learn from the sad experience and won't try to resort to a forceful scenario in Syria,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wrote in a foreign policy article published Monday in the Moscow News. “I can't understand that bellicose itch.” That determination has several roots: Syria is Russia's last remaining ally in the Middle East and the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad is a major customer for Russian arms; Moscow harbors longstanding suspicions that Washington and the West aim for international hegemony; and the Kremlin has a displayed consistent disdain for protest movements. Criticism of Russia's stance on the Al-Assad regime's crackdown on the nearly year-old uprising has become increasingly bitter. At an international conference Friday in Tunisia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Russia and China “despicable” for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria. Such harsh language may only reinforce Russia's ingrained sense of exceptionalism, its self-image as a lonely opponent of Western machinations. With the Obama administration's initiative to “reset” relations with Moscow in a downward spiral, Russia seems to have little to lose by incurring Washington's disfavor. Russian officials are taking pains to appear principled rather than merely obstinate. The Foreign Ministry has been energetic in expressing support for former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's new role as the joint UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, with a mandate to bring an end to the violence and promote a peaceful political solution. On Monday, Annan spoke with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and said he was ready for “active cooperation” with Russia on Syrian problems, a ministry statement said. The ministry also was quick to praise Syria's weekend referendum on a new constitution — a vote that Clinton denounced Sunday as “a cynical ploy ... to be used by Assad to justify what he's doing to other Syrian citizens.” Although the Syrian opposition boycotted the balloting, the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “We regard the referendum as confirmation that the policy of reforms enjoys people's support.” Russia so far has been publicly indifferent to Clinton's acidic comments of last week — unlike China, whose Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Monday said, “We cannot accept them at all.” But Putin's article showed resentment underlying any diplomatic tact.
