Russia's rise: Putin's peculiar partners, 'SA defending thugs like Mugabe'

For all his innovative repression at home, Russian "czar" Vladimir Putin's most remarkable achievement may be getting an influential group of emerging powers to adopt Moscow's amoral worldview.

These countries, known as BRICS, are historically and culturally diverse: B is for Brazil's Latin passion; I is for India's complex democracy; C is for China's autocracy; S is for South Africa's past revolutionary zeal. But now all of them sing in unison, and remarkably it's to the tune set by the R -- as in Putin's Russia.

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov "volunteered" to represent BRICS on the world stage. The economic success of this "association," he told the United Nations, "reflects the realities of the evolving multipolar world."

And Moscow, the veteran, is by default the group's leader. "Russia was one pole when this used to be a bipolar world," a BRICS diplomat told me this week -- so on many issues "Moscow leads, and we respect it."

All the BRICS follow Moscow's no-morals philosophy in their own regions. South Africa, which once appealed to the world's sense of decency during its anti-apartheid struggle, now defends such thugs as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. India plays ball with the tyrannical junta ruling Burma. Brazil coddles Latin America's worst Hugo Chavez-backed regimes. And China, well, is China.

As a group, the BRICS are now united in opposing Western attempts to protect Arab Springers from the dictators who kill them. They all currently happen to sit on the UN Security Council, where they've put up a strong and unified opposition to Western calls to intervene in Libya (although defecting Libyan diplomats ended up turning the tide there). The BRICS also oppose further sanctions on Iran, just as they were opposed in the past to intervention in Sudan.

Unlike the Europeans, the BRICS also are actively trying to isolate and embarrass the Obama administration by forcing it to veto the Palestinian Authority's UN gambit, rather than squash it for lack of support.

And the BRICS have for months blocked any action on Syria, where since March the Assad regime has murdered at least 2,600 people. (On Wednesday, European diplomats, backed by America, softened the latest proposed council resolution, dropping UN-imposed sanctions from the text. Nevertheless, veto-wielding Russia and its BRICS allies still say nyet).

But how does one justify aiding and comforting a killer? Well, cynically. As Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters Wednesday, "[We] heard statements in various capitals, describing who is legitimate and who is not" -- and it sounded too much like "the continuum of the policy of regime change."

Huh? Russia is vowing to fight President Obama's "neo-con" tendencies?

The BRICS pretend to be better. "[We do] not aim at confrontation with anyone," said Lavrov in his UN speech. And, true: The group constantly tries to block UN-sanctioned intervention, even to confront the most despicable atrocities. (Unless, of course, intervention involves their own backyard: On Wednesday, Russia convened the Security Council to discuss a minor border dispute that involved NATO forces in Kosovo.)

It matters: Because of the BRICS' supposed "non-confrontational" philosophy, for example, we'll probably never know if international economic pressure can really enter Iran's nuclear calculations. Each time a Western company pulls out of Iran, a Brazilian, Indian or Chinese company replaces it. Meanwhile, Russia builds Iran's "peaceful" nuclear facilities even as evidence amasses that the mullahs are making huge strides in obtaining atomic weapons.

Unlike the rest of the BRICS, Russia's economy produces little and relies mostly on natural resources (oil) and arms sales. Nevertheless, after Putin has announced his presidential candidacy last week, we should be even more wary than before of the international group he's intent on leading.

Russia wants to revive its glorious Soviet past, and the BRICS are its best vehicle to get there. International bodies like the UN favor such groupings and maximize their influence. The more we play in those increasingly hostile arenas, the more we'll run into Russia's new wall of bricks.