It's not a cold war per default, when a country refuse to do what the US demands. This is just a conflict of interest. Syria is in Russia's backyard, so of course they'll have opposing viewpoints.
Snowden and Wikileaks moved it into the public for a reason. Russia/US can't change that right now, so they have to play along, which seems like a good thing for Snowden/Wikileaks.
>It's not a cold war per default, when a country refuse to do what the US demands. This is just a conflict of interest. Syria is in Russia's backyard, so of course they'll have opposing viewpoints.
They also don't take well to fundamentalists wanting to turn Syria into Afghanistan masquarading as "freedom fighters".
Europeans, and Israeli even more, don't want an extremist Islamic state on their doorstep. Mujhaeddins in Lebanon were enough of a headache already, before their "nationalist" switch; crazies controlling a state as big (and rich) as Syria would mean years of things blowing up from London to Tel Aviv. This is also why the European establishment is quite happy with developments in Egypt.
In this sense, the US-French-British axis gambling with Lybia and Syria was incredibly risky, and could end up creating more problems than Qadafi and Bashar ever did... But that's the nature of our elites, forever playing their little Great Games with no regard for everyday people.
If a military junta in Egypt suits the West as you suggest then so would Assad in Syria.
I think the west's motivations are complicated but certainly do contain an element of desire to help ordinary Syrians and also a fear the consequences of both acting and failing to act.
The problem with Assad (like originally with Qadafi) was that he was in the Russian sphere of influence, so he had to be replaced with a friendlier regime. Somehow, "we" thought the Arab Spring narration was "our" chance to achieve that. It's true that this development contains the possibility of a friendlier regime, which would not have been there with the previous status quo; whether this is actually likely though, it's another matter: the current track record for post-WWII regime-changes in the Middle East is dismal to say the least, and it didn't improve much in the last decade.
Call me cynic, but I believe "ordinary Syrians" are the last of "our" problems. Syrian middle-classes, like their Libyan and Egyptian counterparts, are largely compromised with the regime, and would have certainly favoured a peaceful (if lengthy) transition rather than a civil war where they stand to lose everything. Assad was not more brutal than, say, the King of Morocco, who does pretty much the same sort of thing but is in the Western orbit (and in a less strategic area).
If the alternative is a failed state, and breeding ground for terrorism, or anti-west propaganda, then sure. Assad would be the lesser of two evils from a certain point of view.
If we could get a full-blown democracy, and freedom for the Syrian people, that would of course be even better. But I fear someone else is exploiting their hopes and dreams for a better future to serve their own interests, and any intervention by the west would only fuel that exploitation. But then again seeing civilians getting caught in the crossfire is very painful. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Snowden and Wikileaks moved it into the public for a reason. Russia/US can't change that right now, so they have to play along, which seems like a good thing for Snowden/Wikileaks.