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Source: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/demise-of-annan-plan-in-syria.html
Will Russia Cooperate on Syria?
(Al-Monitor) Aaron David Miller - A year plus into the Syrian situation, Assad's military and security services continue to see their interests best served by killing the opposition rather than acquiescing to its rise. No regional actor has yet had the influence to persuade Assad to relinquish power and military action has been deemed (rightly) to be much harder and more risky than in Libya. Russia may have lost much of its status as a great power, but Putin isn't going to acquiesce in a game of dominoes in which the Americans knock over all of Moscow's former friends - Gaddafi, Assad and even Iran. Indeed, Russia's insistence that Iran be brought in as part of a new contact group suggests that Putin is in no hurry to solve the Syria problem. The writer is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.