Wonder how far Putin is planning to go this round to protect his interests?
Russian politics wrote the book on playing both sides for maximum gain.
"Putin"
"Freakin' Idiot!" --Napoleon Dynamite
His psuedo puppy-dog eyes fool no one. A Stalin disciple.
If he really backs Iran when the cards are down, then hes a bigger fool than I would think a POTRF (president of the Russian Federation) would be. In the long run the natural ally is America, because we face the same threat ultimately--Islamofascist terrrorists.. They have been shifting in strategy from time to time and with one actor on the global stage to another. Historically they tried to keep a tenous peace with the Golden Horde, yet they tried for centuries to Russify the Central Asian provinces, now they try to crush Chechnya, yet engage constructively with Iran... They need to learn a lesson. Is it going to take a 9/11 level catastrophe on Russian soil to teach them that the only good Muslim is a dead one?