The Last Battle of the Cold War - FOUAD AJAMI

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577195050334241954.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Mr. Putin is invested in Syria, as well as in other dictators in the region. There are philosophical and ideological stakes at work here. Mr. Putin has ridden the windfall of oil and gas revenues for a good decade, buying off the middle classes, tranquilizing his country, and justifying his authoritarianism at home as the price of restoration of grandeur and power abroad. But the middle classes have turned against him. And former supporters have grown weary of his Mafia state, with its rampant criminality and cronyism. And so when Russians took to the streets to protest the rigged elections to the Duma of Dec. 4, Mr. Putin's response to the fury was identical to that of the Arab rulers when faced with the protesters of the Arab Spring.

Not quite the last, but the latest.