DAMASCUS, Syria—Russia’s growing rift with the West over the crisis in Ukraine has bolstered the confidence of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, pro-government analysts here say, emboldening him to press ahead with plans for re-election despite a three-year insurgency and making Syrian officials doubt that Russia will pressure him to compromise anytime soon.
The Syrian government is acting with new assurance as its ally Russia moves to take over the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, dismissing American objections and signaling growing assertiveness against the West. Russia has been the Syrian government’s most powerful backer, vetoing measures against Mr. Assad that the United States has supported in the United Nations Security Council. And now, Syrian analysts close to the government say, that seems less and less likely to change.
The prospect of a compromise brokered by Russian and American officials to end the Syrian war seems increasingly remote, with no date set for the resumption of talks in Geneva. Instead, bonds are deepening, on both official and grass-roots levels, between Moscow and Damascus, Cold War allies that now see themselves standing together against Western aggression.
The strong relationship with Russia, combined with recent battlefield victories for the government, like its seizure of the hilltop Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers on Thursday along a strategic highway, are reinforcing a sense here and abroad that Mr. Assad will stay in power at least for the medium term. A pro-government Syrian journalist assessed official views this way: “Frankly, their attitude is, ‘We don’t need Geneva.’”
To Russian and Syrian officials and their supporters, the Syrian war and the standoff over the Crimean Peninsula are essentially part of a single, larger battle, against post-Cold War American unilateralism. They see themselves as resisting Western conspiracies to topple inconvenient but legitimate presidents, Mr. Assad in Syria, and in Ukraine, the pro-Russian leader Viktor F. Yanukovych, whose flight in the face of street protests led to Russia’s actions in Crimea.
Russia’s stance has fostered a new Russophilia among a new generation of government supporters here, who, much as their elders flocked to Moscow to study in the Soviet Union’s heyday, applaud plans for new Russian classes in Syrian schools.
And it has brought displays of long-distance camaraderie between the two governments’ supporters—and their detractors, who see their own, different parallels between Ukraine and Syria. They see Moscow and Damascus as too quick to sanction the use of force against popular protests that the governments dismiss as the work of terrorists and conspirators.
Anti-Russian protesters in Ukraine and opposition activists in Syria have hoisted one another’s flags, as have pro-government demonstrators in Moscow and Damascus.
The Syrian government, not unlike President Obama’s critics in Washington, sees the recent events as part of a decline in America’s influence and a rise in Russia’s. By meddling in the affairs of other countries, from Iraq to the former Soviet countries, said one prominent businessman and political observer in Syria, the United States provoked the world and squandered its position as the sole global power after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
“Now there is Russia, China, and tomorrow God knows who else,” said the businessman, E. Ali Al-Ahmad, the general secretary of the chamber of industry in the city of Homs, emphasizing that he was offering his personal political analysis. “America is forcing the world to oppose it. Even a small country like Syria is standing up to the United States.”
The American system contributed much to the world by fostering creativity, he said, waving his iPhone to demonstrate. “But now,” he said, “that system is destroying itself from within.”
During the Cold War, Syria, led by Mr. Assad’s father, President Hafez al-Assad, was squarely in the Soviet orbit, with a planned economy like Moscow’s. Soviet engineers built dams on the Euphrates River. Apartment blocks much like Moscow’s sprouted around Damascus.
Studying in Moscow was a coveted privilege, and thousands of Syrians brought back Russian wives, many still here despite the war. Half of the university professors here were educated in Russia. Among Syria’s government and opposition alike are Soviet-era alumni who speak Russian fluently and fondly remember their days as students in Moscow.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Russia kept its naval base on the Syrian coast. But when the London-educated Bashar al-Assad became president in 2000, he turned westward, at least in a commercial sense, opening Syria to Western companies. English, not Russian, became de rigueur among the elite.
Then came the Syrian revolt. Opposing Western support for it was a natural extension of Russia’s long-stated aversion to international interference on human rights issues. With Iran and China, Moscow sustained the Assad government financially.
Most crucially, after chemical attacks last August, Russia helped avert an American military strike by brokering a deal to remove Syria’s toxic arms. “Thank you, Russia,” read fliers in Russian and Arabic taped to downtown Damascus walls.
Later, the Syrian government announced that next year, Syrian children could study Russian instead of French, in addition to required English. The goals, the education minister told Hezbollah’s Al Manar television channel, was to renew Soviet-era ties and build cultural bonds with “peoples who want to cooperate based on mutual respect and common interests.”
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