When it comes to Russia, some of the folks on here are just plain nuts.

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?