The Coming Storm

So the evil villain Vladimir Putin has been selling missile defense systems to Iran, weapons to Venezuela, terrorists in general, etc...and now Iran is asking for a favor.

At an international conference, Putin has this to say:

Speaking at a conference of the world's top security officials, including Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Putin said nations "are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations."

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he told the 250 officials, including more than 40 defense and foreign ministers.

"This is very dangerous: Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," he said through a translator.

The entire message of this speech is to get the US to back off. You can tell they're feeling the heat. The US has just sent another destroyer to the Gulf, and Iran is probably frantically calling in every favor they can, in order not to get bombed back to the Stone Age.

So Putin accuses the US of "overstepping it's borders" and violating "international law". The only people the US has gone after in recent years have been terrorists and dictators. So these are clearly the people Putin is protecting, as well as being his greatest customers. But it gets better.

"This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons," he added, without singling out any particular nation.

So in one brief sentence, he excuses Iran's rush for the nuclear bomb. It's not Iran's fault that they are continuously violating the NPT, you see, it's the US that makes Iran so afraid they need the Bomb.

So this rhetorical assault has a much more potent objective than sullying the United States' name internationally. With it, Putin was hoping to accomplish two points.

1. Deter the US from launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

2. Ease international pressure against Iran's nuclear program.

It is essentially liberal strategy at it's finest. Put the enemy(US) on the defensive with a sweeping, intentionally confusing accusation. Then use the (mythical)consequences of that same accusation to defend your ally's(Iran) actions. It all ties together with a neat little bow.

So this is Putin being Putin, and I really wish we had nothing to do with any of these people. Not economic-wise, financial-wise, anything. Then we could take our money out of that dump of the United Nations, and bomb all terrorist-loving nations back to the Stone Age.

-CK