I can think of no one happier with George W. Bush than the guy who had his soul looked into by him--Vladimir Putin. Still a viable nuclear power, a potentially huge problem for Europe, and an ally of sorts to Iran, the Russian president has got to be laughing and laughing and laughing as the US finds that only 17 percent of Turkey's citizens like us, our "ally" Musharraf has declared a police state, and wherever Condi Rice goes for diplomatic kneebending, disaster follows.With Musharraf going to ground, resistance and fighting may well break out in Pakistan for control of the country and its nuclear arsenal. Although the US is not in any danger from attack by Pakistan--they lack long-range delivery capability--if radical Muslim extremists topple the government, our posturing over Iran or bin Laden and the "smoking gun that is a mushroom cloud" (such a dumb pairing of tropes!) is going to be mooted, and our failure to close out the Taliban in Afghanistan will come back to haunt us.
Putin is an old KGB guy, and he knows how to exploit weakness, whether it is personal or national In some ways he is liberated completely from ideological concerns that constrained his Soviet forebears, and can play any advantage that we lay at his feet.
The Middle East is suppurating like an open wound, and it's going to seriously damage the defensive health of this nation--the real purpose of a US military establishment instead of this commercial protection racket that we're running now.
And yes, that's me in the mask, struggling to find some clean air.
