■ In Russia, after 15 years of Vladimir Putin’s leadership, all political culture rotates around the State. He is acting in the Middle East as if the region were just another Russian oblast, a troublesome province that needs to be brought up short by the power of the centralised State.

Macchiavelli Putin is fashioning Russia’s role in Syria as a mirror image of what president George W. Bush tried to do in Iraq with the help of Tony Blair. However, whereas the United States and Britain saw democracy as a cure-all, Putin is pushing a centralised authoritarian State as a remedy for all the troubled region’s ills.

In siding with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Putin has nicknamed himself “Sheikh Putin”, a noble friend who has come to the aid of his best friend.

He has also made it clear to all that Russia has only one goal: to support the government of Assad at all costs, even if he has to blast a convoy filled with medicines and food for the impoverished people of Syria.

The fact that most Muslims in Russia are Sunni does not seem to bother Putin. He apparently thinks that, as soon as all the non-state actors are eliminated or come under strict government control, all threats to the Syrian regime will cease.

For Sheikh Putin of Syria, the fact that combatants are being supported by American forces, the Saudis or Iran detracts from his main point.

By pretending to be ignorant of these distinctions, Putin is making use of the world stage to push one of the main articles of his domestic credo, that is, that any activity by any organisation which is not approved by the State is an adversary to the incumbent power.

No one dares to overthrow Assad and Sheikh Putin of Syria.