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Putin had better back down on Iran. Doesn't he know not to get between a dog and his lunch?
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Look at your words. Think how you would feel if someone, someone bigger and more powerful, was saying the same to you.
See how Russians might feel they need a military big enough to say "Leave us alone, Americantsi!"?
For the record I've become disappointed in the last two years with Putin. I was hoping that after Beslan he would move closer to the U.S. in the war on terror. It hasn't happened.
My analysis of Putin is that he is one of the Russians who doesn't like the U.S. and blames us for the breakup of the Soviet Union. There are Russians who still don't realize how much they were disliked by the other ethnic groups who made up the USSR. These Russians believe it was a CIA plot, sort of a Russian-style MIHOP.
He has and will continue to put diplomatic and political roadblocks before the U.S., but he won't ever get into a direct conflict - bad things would happen to Russia and he knows it.
The good news is that he won't be president forever - his term is up in early 2008. Hopefully his successor won't have the same chip on his shoulder.
Think of Canada - for years we had no cooperation because of the attitudes of the prime ministers, then the conservatives win and suddenly Canada is much more cooperative.