Russians Say Anti-U.S. Attack in Libya Vindicates Their Position
Russia has fumed over the United States’ role in the Arab Spring for months, arguing that the West should not support popular uprisings against dictatorships in the Middle East lest Islamic fundamentalism take hold. Vladimir V. Putin, then serving as prime minister, was especially enraged last fall after an angry crowd killed his ally, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, an event he later condemned as “a repulsive, disgusting” scene.
With this in mind, Russia has blocked Western initiatives to force Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, from power despite a bloody crackdown on the opposition. Russia’s response to the storming of the American Consulate in Benghazi underlined the deep divide between Russian and Western policy in the region.
Yevgeny Y. Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, said American leaders should not expect “one word of sympathy” from their Russian counterparts.
“You are the Soviet Union now, guys, and you pay the price,” he said. “You are trying to distribute democracy the way we tried to distribute socialism. You do it the Western way. They hate both.” He said dictators were preferable to the constellation of armed forces that emerge when they are unseated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/europe/russians-say-anti-american-attack-in-libya-vindicates-their-position.html?_r=1
Sounds like the Russian preference for dictators in the Middle East is quite similar to the republicans' history in that part of the world. Apparently as the big powers in the world we get to decide whether people live under dictators or get a say in who runs their country. We just need to tell them that we know better that they do what the consequences of too much democracy would be for them. Some people just have to live with under dictators to make the world better for the rest of us. 
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