I, Barack Obama, demand that President Bush get Congressional authorization to protect our country and its freedoms as he has pledged to do: Start destroying the United States arsenal of nuclear weapons. And to halt development of the defense shield that would protect the U.S. against nuclear weapons launched by terrorists or hostile countries, making our children safe.

but i am not sure you are real

You Rachel Peepers and Steve Nelson: both of you are fakes, you work for KGB

the other possibility is your shear stupidity, which is even more dangerous

And as far as Russia’s Mideast policy goes, sure, up until recently, I think there was some “here’s some toys Iran, go play” mischief making going on. It is very clear from the historic documents that Brezhnev was playing that game in the 1970s by providing massive Soviet armaments for the Yom Kippur War – the payoff from higher world oil prices due to the Arab embargo paid back the Soviets a thousandfold on the cost of their arms in hard currency. But at the ideological level, besides sucking up to the Muslim world to keep their own Islamic populations in check, the Russians could care less about the Arab-Israeli conflict or “pushing the U.S.’s only ally out of the Middle East”. Jordan, Kurdistan and the Gulf Arab states to varying degrees are U.S. allies though not vassals, they are not selling the U.S. cheap oil anymore. When the Russians look at Iran, they mainly see just a business opportunity and a state they would rather not have sponsoring terrorism or collapsing near their borders, nothing more. Certainly not an ally.

As for Dan’s comments, while Ukrainians suffered briefly (for one day), I have no sympathies for the Ukrainian government which put them in that position by expecting cheap, subsidized Russian gas indefinitely.

And why are so many people here totally convinced that a non-state actor could not obtain a few hundred grams of polonium? The late Forbes journalist Paul Klebnikov thought Berezovsky capable of murder, so why wouldn’t he be capable of killing his own employee if he felt it would substantially decrease the likelihood of him being deported from the UK back to Russia to face the corruption charges he fled in 2000?

Zenster:

One might expect Russia to take pause at the notion of building an even larger nuclear arsenal. Russia’s frail military infrastructure nowhere near adequately guarantees that one of their own devices might not be stolen and used against them.

it is a bad habit to call identify the Country of Russia with criminal gang in kremlin. Will lead to even more alienating of PEOPLE from us. And also it shows total lack of understanding of what is going on there on you part.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to steal nukes in Russia. The level of security is UNBELIEVABLE. If something `gets stolen` it was designed to be TRANSFERED.

And on the military infrastructure:

kremlin maintains a very big special forces in numbers and they are extremely well paid and trained. It is in the numbers of hundred thousands troopers. They are also used to suppress internal decent.

There are underground bunkers build and remodeled, there are at least 50 thousand tanks, may be not very modern, but

DOES THE WESTERN EUROPE HAVE ADCOURAGE TO USE ANY FORCE IF SOVIET TANKS WILL ARRIVE IN EUROPEAN CITIES? I doubt there going to be ANY resistance AT ALL.

Narrowing what would otherwise be a “full spectrum” of response may well be one of the best messages to send the Russians. Either they learn to be a productive member of the world community or find that their insufficient military is nothing more than a liability.

Message sending NEVER works with gangsters and never worked. The only way WEST can survive is by actual change of REGIME in Moscow. There are things to be undertaken to do it:

1.it is a support of opposition to criminal regime

2.there is a way to limit kremlin nuclear capability: cut strategic metals supply to them.
They get uranium and zirconium from outside, from Ukraine mainly. That is the exact reason Ukrainian President was poisoned in 2004: he is married to american!!!

3.Since kremlin already DID oerform hostile acts towards our interest and Homeland: on 9-11, in Israel, and Lebanon, in Iran, around Georgia:

it is time to act NOT TO SEND MESSAGES. We have to seriously consider asymmetrical retaliation. This is a long story: what exactly to do, but it is clear from above in what direction it should go.

Yet one more reason why America’s interests in fighting global terrorism might have been better served by a display of massively disproportionate retaliation much earlier in our efforts to militarily engage Islam.

NOT DISPLAY: we have to take actions like ..yesterday. Wide actions, including total embargo on ANY trade with kremlin and Beijing and their allies; including imidiate switch away from oil and natural gas based economy done in several months.

Otherwise we will have to deal with WMD on our territory in a very near future. It will mean the end of USA and it is planned by communists.

and again Islamic threat is just instrumental in kremlin war against us

All rationality (or not) aside, all deterrence aside, there is little further trouble coming from a plain of hot, smoking glass. This is the bottom line in terms of all “strategic inferiors”. Even the slightest malicious act may be your last.

It may be an exaggeration to claim that a missile defense will have the effect of disarming the Kremlin of any viable military response between issuing a diplomatic protest and starting Armaggedon but it is quite clear it threatens to invalidate a large range of the “full spectrum” responses now available to the Russians.

One might expect Russia to take pause at the notion of building an even larger nuclear arsenal. Russia’s frail military infrastructure nowhere near adequately guarantees that one of their own devices might not be stolen and used against them.

Narrowing what would otherwise be a “full spectrum” of response may well be one of the best messages to send the Russians. Either they learn to be a productive member of the world community or find that their insufficient military is nothing more than a liability.

With a half dozen missiles at the ready the Ayatollahs could be reasonably sure that, short of an actual nuclear attack on an American city, Washington might not dare take disproportionate action. In other words, the uncertainty which forms the kernel of American deterrence would be effectively undermined.

Which neatly summarizes why Iran’s nuclear aspirations must be strangled in the cradle.

Deterrence is above all a psychological game. The Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence reminds us that the vast expenditures of the Cold War — and today — go towards the purchase of uncertainty in the enemy’s mind.

Yet one more reason why America’s interests in fighting global terrorism might have been better served by a display of massively disproportionate retaliation much earlir in our efforts to militarily engage Islam. Nothing quite rattles an enemy’s resolve like having the moldering corpse of a confederate in the same room with them.

ajacksonian:: The strongest weapon against Iran is undermining their ideology by demonstrating it to be ineffective in dealing with everyday life and showing how personal liberty can lead to a better life with freedom.

Now when I start seeing educational institutions, religious institutions willing to teach secualr subjects, and US foreign policy based on those things, that will make an extremely credible threat in the one place that will harm Iran the most: Iraq.

The exact problem being that the American government’s wholesale subscription to Multiculturalism has badly choked the exact mission you suggest. That shari’a law once again reigns in Afghanistan and Iraq has defeated a huge number of the valid objectives you state. Critical components of a health society like transparency, juridical integrity and benevolent law enforcement all suffer under the corrupt superstructure of shari’a law.

RWE: I think we now have an entire class of people who think that talking is the answer to everything.

Just as with how when your only toll is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail: All the liberals have is dialogue, so that everything appears to them as being negotiable. The delusional part is when they try to negotiate with Islam, whose objectives are non-negotiable. This is root and branch of the total psychological disconnect by the Left with respect to fighting Islam and terrorism.

John Samford: Stain was the most rational leader of the 20th century. I offer as evidence his longevity as the ruler of the Largest nation of the 20th century.
Anyone that doubts how rational Stalin was is using the wrong metric.

If you consider the murder of countless innocent people, incessant paranoia driven purges and imposed starvation to be “rational” forms of administration, then I suppose you could call Stalin rational. The man was a cold-blooded psychopath and little else. Your metrics are the ones that need retooling.

dan: By the way, since the topic of Russia has been raised, I wish we could get Wretchard or some other reputable commentator to comment on Yuri Bezmenov’s video.

I heartily second that motion. For those who are still unfamiliar with this important clip, here is a link to Yuri Bezmenov’s video.

A general discussion of The Communist Agenda and its far reaching implications with respect to America’s current political turmoil would go a long way towards clarifying the pervasive murk that roils our country’s stability.

this is exact the cultural thi ng that subversion created

it was PLANED to introduce this attitude and you bought it

a nation bought it!!!

it is worth then drugging or alcoholization it was done in the eastern eorope

whatever.

Tell ya what — I’ll agree to ignore you as being worthless, too, how ’bout that?

(I said “bellybutton” because I had a momentary brain lapse and couldn’t remember if it was “navel” or “naval” and didn’t feel like the discussion was worth taking the time to look it up. You got something against bellybuttons, which I think is a perfectly good allegory about your obsessive/compulsive desire to focus only upon Russia and its history.

Never mind — don’t answer that question. Set “ignore future pomposity” on now.)

It’s not like the Iranians just decided to conduct two tests in a vacuum with no provocation to trigger it. So I’ll posit the Israeli air power exercise, and the joint US-Israeli operations over Iraq are a signs of weakness as well, with Olmert being cornered with his fraud allegations, and McCain confronted by an election season dominated by bread-and-butter issues with no scary foreign policy thing to wave in the face of voters.

the good old days effectively ended in 1917

since then the forces that aim to destroy everything that you call “good and old” are growing in strength and successfully gain more and more ground. And of course they kill unnecessary people. And we are on their list.

We lost cold war. We lat our enemy gain enourmous strength without even acknowledging WHAT HAPPENED. Exactly like our enemy planed.

We let them successfully test ON OUR TERRITORY their new weapon known among fools as `islamic radicalism` and even more successfully test a biological attack which will be most likely the weapon of choice to kill , well, they rather plan EXTERMINATION, but we hope it will be limited at 100 million Americans only.

So your AMMO attitude may come handy.

even your wording is disturbing. You use `cute expressions` like
“bellybutton of the universe” which have NO MEANING and provide no understanding

So for you the history of 20th century and mass killings done by communists in the USSR, the WWII instigated by kremlin, wars in Indochina, Africa – is nothing. You cant get out of glib phrases
about “the saddle than the horse, the rider, or even the saddle.”

Well, cheating principal, when i reached THAT in your posting-
i decided to give up. It is sad that your ignorance and brainwashed state is a massive disease and will gradually lead to your own personal and of this society premature death