[Julie Steiner]

Someone was asking why the world was so much less chaotic some decades ago.

To me, it seems obvious that it was because the United States and many other countries were "making the world safe for democracy" by propping up dictators.

Dictatorships are nice and stable. They keep their people under control, or at least more concerned with local grievances than international ones; and to deal with that country, your own government only has to keep one person happy. Easy-appeasy.

Unfortunately, when a foreign power decides that the dictator isn't really working out for them anymore, and they want to get rid of that dictator, they piss everyone off. The dictator's former internal supporters are obviously unhappy, but so are the many people who remember that the fickle foreign power that is helping them out now was long responsible for keeping their enemy in power, and thus cannot be trusted. (And if the removal of that dictator was clearly not what the foreign power wanted, so much the worse for warm and fuzzy feelings from the new regime.)

Also dictators, by definition, habitually eliminate serious threats to their leadership, both institutional and individual; when they are themselves removed, the resulting power vacuum tends to get filled with numerous lesser talents squabbling for power. Often violently. (And, in the absence of strong democratic institutions, often with the aid of whatever other tools of power are convenient, such as religion.)

Putin thinks that the way to solve Syria's problems is to return to that nice, stable dictatorship model of yesteryear. Put Bashar al-Assad back in charge, and everything will be hunky dory, so far as Putin is concerned. It might not be so great for the people of Syria--particularly the ones who tried to get rid of al-Assad in the first place--but hey, it'll be more tolerable for non-Syrians, and that's what counts. Give al-Assad the tools to destroy those who hate both him and us, and we can all go back to not caring what happens in Syria.

At least until al-Assad's dictatorship ends, and all hell breaks loose again.

I'm more mistrustful of the long-term efficacy of the "propping up a dictator" model than Putin is. But then Putin seems to think that a nice, stable, macho, powerful dictatorship is a great idea for Russia, too.