A month ago President Assad of Syria was being fêted in Paris. His country was close to normalising relations with Lebanon and engaged in talks with Israel. A peace treaty seemed possible, and with it an end to Syria's longstanding isolation. Today, Mr Assad will meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, in Sochi. By way of preparation he has enthusiastically backed Moscow's invasion of Georgia, signed up for a major new package of Russian defence hardware and ridiculed the failure of Israeli weapons and advisers to prevent the Georgian Army's humiliation.

The ripples created by the crisis in the Caucasus are spreading fast, and to Moscow's satisfaction. There is a risk that a wholesale realignment of the Middle East along Cold War lines could follow - but if so it is Syria and the region's other former Soviet allies who would suffer most.

Russia's reasons for seeking to draw Syria back into its orbit are clear: strategically, the Russian Navy gains the prospect of access to two Syrian warm-water ports just as Ukraine attempts to rewrite its rules for Russian use of bases in Crimea. Moscow has also been able to announce the dispatch of Russian air defence systems to Syria on the very day that the US signed a missile defence pact with Poland. Diplomatically, a rapprochement (after years of strained relations because of unpaid Syrian debts) sends a signal to Nato that containing the new Russia will take more than merely co-opting its neighbours.

The US has given Russia warning that the price of further brinkmanship will be isolation. Mr Medvedev's answer is that he can always find new friends. But Syria itself is being foolish as well as fickle.

As Mr Assad enjoys the Black Sea views from Mr Medvedev's summer retreat, the Syrian leader should remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. If it were, they would be meeting in Yalta. More importantly, Moscow has no ideological reason to bankroll Syrian development. Once Russia's current grandstanding subsides, the basis of any new relationship with Damascus will be strictly commercial.

Mr Assad should also note that he is in bad company. The only other country to have endorsed Russia's Caucasian adventure so loudly is Belarus, Europe's sole remaining dictatorship. Until last week Syria could hope for a return to full diplomatic relations with the US under its new president. That prospect is now receding.

The price for Damascus will be high in terms of continued US sanctions alone. But how should the West in general respond to the Syrian gambit? Its first rule should be not to panic. For all the Cold War echoes of Moscow's communiqués on missile batteries and ports, that war is over.

What Russia's overture to Syria does signify is a challenge to weak Western leadership of the Middle East peace process. It is not too late to meet this challenge with co-operation. Russia is still a member of the Quartet that backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has a keen interest in regional stability, not least because of the one million ethnic Russians now living in Israel. And its new closeness to Damascus could erode Syrian dependence on Iran, making a deal with Israel more likely, not less.

Outside the Middle East, Russia has committed itself to a maverick and self-defeating foreign policy. Syria would be foolish to sign up to it.