'Russia-US crisis may soon spread to Near East'

"... This information came as no surprise to Moscow, which as Russian sources say, was already aware of deliveries of antitank weaponry. According to them, an expansion of deliveries was discussed during President Barack Obama's visit to Riyadh on March 28... Moscow analysts believe that the following circumstances played a role in changing the course of the US administration.
First of these is the worsening in Russian-US relations due to the reunification of Russia and Crimea, alongside the strengthened role of neoconservative elements in the Washington bureaucracy, who are anxious to spite Russia wherever they can, and to hinder normalization of US-Iranian relations. These are the very same people who worked behind the scenes during the coup in Kiev. As Robert Merry recently wrote, referring to William Pfaff, Victoria Nuland “even identified the man who should replace Yanukovych after his ouster,” and “the United States spent some $5 billion in fostering 'democratic institutions' in Ukraine designed to nudge the country away from Russian sway.” He said that only “saner heads would have understood how dangerous this kind of activity can be.”
Second is America’s desire to support its Saudi partners, whose Syrian policy has evoked a serious internal crisis in the Saudi Arabian monarchy, the leaders of which blame the United States for all of their problems.
Third is the fear that the antigovernment forces in Syria could fall, which would turn the mantra of “Assad must go” into merely wishful thinking.
Most Russian experts believe that the supply of modern arms to the Syrian rebels:

• Will not guarantee victory for the detachments that receive them; moreover, the suppliers will hardly be able to ensure that these weapons will not be seized by competing groups of fighters, including international terrorists.

• Will exacerbate the rivalry between the rebel groups, rather than promote their unification.

• Will impel government forces and their supporters to take harsher actions and will intensify the armed confrontation, costing even more civilian lives.

• Will increase the flow of refugees.

• Will force the pro-Damascus regional powers to mobilize even more personnel and material resources to fight the rebels...."