The Russians recently expressed "grave concern" over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Although this is a transparently insincere attempt to needle the Saudis, the Russians do have a point that the anti-Assad coalition it comprised largely of unelected, unaccountable, and dictatorial regimes. At a very basic level this episode illuminates the extent to which all of the countries concerned are playing a hard-edged and brutal game of realpolitik that has been crudely adorned with the ill-fitting trappings of democracy and human rights.