Overtime Call Due On Played Out Presidency

Watching the rise of Russia is disconcerting for our media, and I for one am waiting for more attention to the Putin persona in face of his obvious success with the Russian public.

We were all delighted when the Soviet Union collapsed, and sure that democracy would give us congenial leaders who joined in such jolly fun as letting WalMarts spring up to underpay and not insure their employees. But no! we have Strontium 90 and the cancelling of elections for regional posts. All the while, the Russian economy is booming with high prices of oil, and Putin makes his disdain for our idiot chief executive quite plain.

While I don't agree with all of his premises, a professed expert on Islam has a piece that I think is worthwhile for some of its views.

Russia, on the other hand, has natural conflicts built-in with Iran. For one, Iran is so close to Russia that it would be immediately threatened by Tehran’s nuclear weapons, far more so than the far-away America (or even Israel would be if the radical Ayatollahs lose power). Long term, Iranian nukes are a greater threat to Russia than to anyone else.

Kremlin also has a dispute over the oil under the Caspian with Iran, where Moscow is arguing (correctly) that the Caspian is legally defined as the world’s largest lake (which would grant Russia the right to most of the Caspian oil) and not a sea, as it is commonly called, which would grant the right to much of the Caspian oil to Iran and Muslim countries in the south of the former Soviet Union.

Russia also has been challenged to its south in six Muslim countries where Iran (and Turkey) tried to promote an Islamic alliance dominated by Tehran (or Ankara) at the expense of Russian interests there.

Kremlin pretends to help Tehran inside and outside the United Nations only to play Washington for a fool. Americans are paying Russians to do exactly what they want to do anyway, while at the same time making Moscow seem like a major player on the world scene.

Thus, just as in Afghanistan, in Iran too Moscow’s interests are in line those of Washington.

Where Moscow’s interests diverge with Washington’s is once again in Kosovo. But this time Russia is no longer a weak state, with a dysfunctional military and a destroyed economy that face a real threat of disintegration like 10 years ago.

Rather than the joke it was in the late 1990s, Putin’s Russia of 2008 is a country that matters. It matters in terms of global economy, oil and gas, United Nations, War on Terror and just about every other international issue.

CNN and other Western media likes to portray the Russian people as fools who blindly support Putin and his semi-dictatorial tendencies. But they are not fools. They know that today they are wealthier than ever before in Russian history, and Putin has been their leader responsible for the economic rise. Surely the rise in oil prices helped, but rather than stealing the newly-found wealth (like, for example, Nigerian leaders do) or squandering it on useless government programs that support degenerate behavior (as is done in the West), Putin used it to lower taxes and pay off the debt. Paying back the country’s debt is not particularly popular because citizens do not see any immediate benefit, and it would’ve been far more fashionable for Putin to engage in American-style populism where politicians spike their personal poll numbers by engaging in fiscal child abuse by borrowing and then wasting money that will have to be paid by later generations.

But more than economics, what truly makes Russians support Putin is a restored sense of pride, a sense that their country matters once again for the first time in a generation. (Emphasis added.)

There are no surprises to readers in the opinion that our occupied White House has absolutley no command over foreign relationships. Their stance against diplomacy has decidedly revealed the lack of ability for diplomacy in high office. Cronyism run rampant will do that to a government.

While it was running around the Middle East trying to get some one else to join in its grudge match against Iran, the lame ducks in the executive branch made it obvious to all observers that they were rudderless as they are mindless.

Russia is headed by a nationalist Putin who has struggled out of severe deprivation and won loyalty from his countrymen. The spectacle of our motley crew being totally outplayed by him, not a pretty sight, is becoming too obvious to be ignored any longer.

The interests of the U.S. have never been important to the cretin in chief. His malfeasance in office has left this country's resources severely depleted, and its place in the world hugely diminished.

On January 20, 2009, we can start climbing out of the hole we've been left in.