Paul Thomas: Ahem, maybe Vladimir Putin has a point

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Photo / AP

There some things you never expect to hear yourself say.

Like: "You know, I really miss Winston." Or: "I don't think Michael Laws was actually trying to be provocative." Or: "Say what you like about the Warriors, at least you know what you're going to get from them."

Up until this week that list would have included: "Maybe Vladimir Putin's got a point."

Part of the double act that runs Russia, Putin had this to say about Western military intervention in Libya: "The degree of nonchalance about launching hostilities upon a sovereign state is unsettling. Libya is not a country with adequate democratic credentials, nevertheless this did not give the Western powers the right to intervene in an internal conflict and take one side."

Putin's defence of national sovereignty is self-serving in that like every Russian/Soviet leader he believes it's none of the rest of the world's business what goes on within Greater Russia and its zone of influence, even when that involves ferocious and indiscriminate use of military force.

But just as hypochondriacs can get sick and paranoiacs can have real enemies, hypocrites can make a valid point, even when they're being hypocritical. It's one thing to support military intervention to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, as happened too late in the former Yugoslavia and far, far too late in Rwanda.

However that doesn't seem to be what's happening in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi has uttered bloodthirsty threats which his forces have made good on to an extent, but this is essentially a civil conflict in which the tyrant, for whatever reason, is not without support.

While ostensibly preventing the Libyan armed forces from waging total war on civilians and lightly armed rebels, it appears as if the West is trying to bring about regime change on the basis that anyone or anything is preferable to Gaddafi.

Now it wouldn't bother me if Gaddafi is strung up from a Tripoli lamp-post. And if the allies can stage manage events so that Gaddafi exits, dead or alive, and his regime is replaced by something better, then French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron are welcome to the subsequent bounce in the polls.

But is it certain that a new regime would be an improvement, either from the Libyan people's or the west's perspectives? This week David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and author of the term "Axis of Evil," referred to research circulating in Washington which indicates that on a per capita basis Libya supplied twice as many fighters to the anti-US Iraqi insurgency as any other Arab country, and that 75 per cent of them came from the rebel-controlled region centred on Benghazi.

Have we forgotten the lessons of Afghanistan where support for the mujahedeen resistance helped end the Soviet occupation and bring down the communist puppet government, but at the cost of creating a two-headed monster - the Taleban and al-Qaeda?

And with the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, what are the odds that other despots will follow Gaddafi's lead, rather than go quietly like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak?

This week demonstrators were being gunned down in Syria where the Assad clan has ruled with an iron fist since 1971. What will the coalition of the ready, willing and able do if the current Syrian President decides to take a leaf out of his father's book and exterminate his opponents?

What of Algeria? Tunisia was the first domino to fall, but the initial stirrings of popular discontent were in the Algerian city of Akbou in early January. This, after all, is a country where upwards of 150,000 people were killed in the often barbaric civil war which began in 1992 when elections were cancelled to prevent the Islamic parties gaining power.

Current President Abdelaziz Bouteflika managed to drag Algeria back from the abyss, but in time-honoured North African fashion he has amended the constitution to allow him to remain in office indefinitely.

The advocates of intervention see this as a pivotal moment in history. They seem to believe that given a judicious application of Western muscle the corrupt and oppressive Arab status quo will collapse, and from its ruins freedom and democracy will bloom. It's a seductive notion, but not as seductive as it was when we first heard it, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.