UNLIKE US, RUSSIA AND CHINA DO NOT ABANDON THEIR FRIENDS

You can think what you like about the two vetoes Russia and China exercised in behalf of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at the UN Security Council, but one thing is certain ….. Russia and China do not abandon their friends.

On Saturday, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called on Assad to step down from his presidency and threatened sanctions against the Syrian regime if it did not immediately halt the military crackdown against its civilian population. Russia, in particular, has been a long-time ally of the Syrian president.

Contrast that to the way we abandoned Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, our strongest ally in the Arab world, and Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh who helped us fight our sworn enemies in al-Queda. (‘Have We No Shame?!’ / 1-30-12)

The veto leaves us and the Europeans huffing and puffing at Assad’s regime like the wolf trying to blow the Three Little Pigs’ house down.

Assad’s military has now slaughtered nearly 3,000 Syrian civilians. Compare that to the Libyan situation.

When it appeared that Muammar Gaddafi’s military was about to put down a civilian revolt last March in the city of Benghazi, NATO was authorized by a UN Security Council resolution to use force to protect the Libyan civilian population. NATO, with the U.S., Britain and France playing the major role, conducted blistering airstrikes against Gaddafi’s military that did not end until October when the dictator was captured and killed by rebel forces.

As for a possible military strike against Assad, I doubt that would have happened even if there had been a UN resolution authorizing the use of force. Why not? Libya had a relatively weak military with outdated tanks and aircraft. Syria, on the other hand, has a strong army with modern Russian tanks, aircraft and ballistic missiles. And while our airpower and that of the British and the French could wipe out much of the Syrian military, it would come with a high cost in unacceptable losses of our aircraft and their crews.

To compound matters, if we attacked Assad’s forces, there is a good possibility that Iran would come to the aid of its Syrian ally. So the Russians probably did us a favor when they stood by their ally, something we failed to do with Mubarak and Saleh.