Medvedev: West acts like bull in china shop in Mideast

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday the West's interference in Syria may "create yet another unstable country." Medvedev's comments came during an interview with Russia Today on Sunday to mark the 5-year anniversary of Georgia launching an attack on the capital of South Ossetia that led to the Russia–Georgia war of 2008. "Syria is also on the brink of a similar war. Basically, there's a civil war raging in the country; it's a disaster," Medvedev said, comparing the civil war in Syria to the uprising in Libya. "We have always believed that the power to solve Syria's problems should lie with its people. But the active interference that we now see might potentially lead to the same problems and create yet another unstable country, in a permanent state of civil war." When asked whether Western forces sometimes push conflicts in the Middle East to a "point of no return," or making it difficult to get the warring sides to attempt negotiations, Medvedev said: "Our Western partners sometimes behave like a bull in a china shop -- they squeeze in, crush everything and then don't know what to do next." "If we're being completely honest, what good did the Arab Spring bring to the Arab world? Did it bring freedom? A little, at best. In most countries it led to endless bloodshed, regime change, and continuous unrest. I have no illusions about that either. As for the pushing you mentioned, yes, unfortunately, that's true," Medvedev said.