Ok, so the Russian line is that better Assad stays in power than Syria potentially turning into an Islamic fundamentalist state.

I read/heard/watched that on the BBC though so its probably not true?

With no obvious action from the outside world (because of the intransigence of Russia and China) the opposition in Syria are left to fight on their own and are exposed to more extreme ideologies as an answer to their lonely predicament.

opposition is fighting on there own?. they have unlimited number of cannon fodder.
http://news.kuwaittimes.net/2012/06/10/fighters-from-kuwait-joining-syrian-rebels-kurd-new-snc-leader/
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/tunisia/tunisian-fighters-travel-to-syria-1.1038660
so how come Yemen/Somalia and all the rest exposed to extreme ideologies. and world has to pay for anti-piracy missions. your still not getting the point.

Self fulfilling prophecy really.

So the question is what does Russia stand to gain if Syria goes into a civil war situation with Islamic extremists forming the bulk of the opposition?

Is not that the only way for them to guarantee the follow on state is not pro-west?

Arabs have to fund Turkey with its consumption based GDP and all this cannon fodder. so oil prices will stay higher. and less money for West banking system.

If the rest of NATO asks for Greece to facilitate NATO assistance for Turkey, saying “No” turns Greece into a pariah.
Do Greeks really think Syria under the Assad clan could ever be a better, more useful, or more reliable friend than the USA, UK, Germany et al?

Greece location is such that it cannot become pariah.
Asand is not clan like Gaddafi which was one manshow
Turkey victory in Syria will earn it hundreds of billions from Arabs and Turkey will surely turn its guns on next weak country. that is Greece.

No of course not, as far as i’m aware, most former nuclear subs (US/UK etc) are sat about not really being decommissioned like a nuclear plant is.

All I was wondering is if the Russians intend to stump up their own cash for safe disposal/storage in future if they want to continue building them. Only seems reasonable, although its a damn clever ploy to have the enemy the subs were built to combat pay for them to be disposed of properly rather than causing massive environmental damage.

Russia and West has transactional based approach. just the logistics and aircorridor help with Afghanistan for past 10 years is worth couple of billions dollars. which is much more than cost of disposing old subs.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/russia-and-former-soviet-union/russia-ratifies-deal-with-italy-on-afghan-transit.html#.T-snEvXhcnU
Not to mention not supplying latest weopons to extent to unfriendly countries to west.

Russia is no concern to Turkey. If you remember the czars all failed to take Turkey.

I can see the potential of this shoot down as a springboard for NATO to invade Syria. I doubt it will happen.

There is no so called West this time that will rescue Turkey as it happened in past couple of centuries.
i dont know how Turkish military can fight when Arab funded Erdo is at the top.
Erdo standing in islamic wolrd is so low that he couldnot pressurized Paksitan to open NATO supply routes there by giving Russian decisive leverage over NATO.

Now by asking NATO against syria Erdo has proven to the rest of world that no Islamic country is coming to his rescue.
Russia has is its own Cash, surplus food and technology that it can create alliance of Islamic countries against Turkey. Putin is visiting Israel and i have no doubt that Russia is willing to compensate Israel for all cancel deals with Turkey. and show to Obama/Erdo that he can visit Israel.
Russia never had such good time in history when dealing with Middleast. It can bomb them at will or divide them into blocks.

The BIG question is: If the west gets inviolved, what will Russia do?

Putin will not stand idle with any one attackings Russians. and if they are not evacuating it means they are in for long haul.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_06_22/78976797/
No plans to evacuate Russians from Syria

You have to consider West dependency on Russia. 200, 000 People alone in Afghanistan depends on CSTO airspace & Rail. and than there is Azerbaijan few kms away from being occupied by Russian tanks.
Turkey will not survive for a day without energy supplies from CIS/Iran.
The whole thing looks to me Russia is using Syria to punch Turkey to discredit that fake Sultan sitting in Turkey. If Turkey didnot handle Syria well it will lose Arab money and will turn into another Greece.

Then why did the UK and Irish intervene?
If they had been something other than attack aircraft, I doubt if there would have been a fuss. But obviously some people feel the need to help protect people from their own government.

UK has to intervene due it is economy needs every bits of defence contracts & banking support from Kingdump of Saudi. Russia has to support to the degree it can to protect is 100,000 citizen.
It wont take alot of years like Soviet Afghan war who was right.

If this is a civil war, I’m not sure how it differs from Libya and Egypt…those were basically civil wars as well.

It differs. There is nothing like moderates remaining in Libya/Eqypt/Jordan. By moderate means real not pseudo credentials at the top.

Its like dealing with snakes.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/05/attack-on-cia-by-jordan-doctor/
Attack on CIA by Jordan-born double agent

See above. Where’s the profit? You’re claiming that politicians engaged in a vast & complicated conspiracy in order to do something, but you can’t show any way in which they could have gained. Show me the money.

you cannot measure UK corruption on same standards as Nigeria.
UK system is much more sophisticated. see total debt to gdp.
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/4060/economics/total-uk-debt/
creating this level of debt without any practical ouput & domestic savings expose country to various international blackmails with austerity that will ultimately impact living standards.
this despite UK educating world 2nd highest number of students from around the world. UK simply unable to transform such large pool into real world GDP.

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