Looks like the game field is leveling between the socialists and the US to me.
Next step is tactical nuclear war.
In the UN, it's always a level playing field. You can be a tinpot dictator or a murdering oligarchy or even the homeland of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. You're just as good as the US, especially if you're on the Security Council.
But next stop isn't tactical nuclear war. It'll be the US getting a minor nuke exploded somewhere, probably a US port city, likely Texas or Florida. The US will then get pissed at the entire MidEast and finally grow a pair, which could mean nukes, could just mean we get serious about troops on the ground, or could even mean we develop genetically-based biological weapons. If a nuke or large-scale WMD is used, the US will HAVE to respond somehow in kind. But that doesn't mean nukes, necessarily.