No, I think he was referring to the revolution.

That's called posturing. While it's often deep with significance, it's not always followed by actual actions.

I am putting those two quote to underline the hypocrisy of both your statements. You say (ironically) that we should not "offend the Russians", blablabla.. that Obama is actually bowing down to them. You even criticizing Bush for his (weakling) attitude toward Russia. In short, you think we are giving Russia more than a little breath room.

But at the same time, you are saying that she should not care about Russia's feeling about Ukraine and Georgia.

Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Baltic States (and to a lesser extend, the central-asian republics north of Afghanistan) are all countries where the U.S. have made inroads in the past 20 years, economically, ideologically and military. Under Clinton, Bush and now Obama the U.S. of A. have been systematically aggressing the Russians by getting influence in those regions.

Russia is unique in it's geography: they don't have any real natural borders. In order to properly defend their territory, they need buffer zone to slow down and slowly crippling an invading army (that's how they have beaten both Napoleon and Hitley). They don't see it as having dominance over a lesser people: they see it as establishing a security perimeter. Maybe the nations under Russia's heel aren't happy about the whole thing, but Russia needs those nations.

And U.S.'s building up in influence in those regions isn't going to end. It's U.S.'s natural tendency to act like that. U.S. are on the extreme opposite of "calming down the Russian". You gave a concession on 1 issue. It's 1 out of 4000 that the Russians are genuinely worried about regarding their security.

(you were commenting about Iran's current lack of nuclear nuking capacity). You are comparing nuke-building (and not just the nuclear device; we are talking about the whole delivery system too), which is a huge economical commitment from any nation, to a CAR CRASH?

How stupid are you?

I don't see a Nuke-building as a "random event" mate.

Russia has no desire to let down its guard against the tension the U.S. created in Ukraine, Georgia, Kosovo and Poland either. Most of their actions around the world is aimed at distracting you and make you spend lots of ressources.

But U.S.'s economy is far from being crippled. You have so much potential, and your current economical strenght is only beginning to be properly tapped. You can afford to spend 10 times more money on strategic positionning around the world (which you historically have done), and still beat the Russians in a long-run race.

Russians are building up again against the U.S., and there is nothing we can do about it directly. The U.S. will simply use a winning strategy again, with different realities and different tactics.

He still said that because of Carter, Iran is our ennemy. Iran would have been your ennemy regardless of who was in the White House, regardless on how skilled he was. Iran needed to break independant of the U.S.'s influence to try to build up regional influence, and the U.S. simply reacted by drawing them into a war against Iraq.

U.S.'s Grand Strategy, while not making many people happy around the world, is incredibly effective to preserve your security.

Iraq/Iran balance of power has been preserve up until recently, and Iran now for the first time can afford to spend time on building up influence.

Yes. And that had nothing to do with "fundamental shifts in Iran's society".

Iran's society didn't change fundamentally in the 70s. The people remained as pro-western as they were. What did change was the regime. And that was partly and to a great part Carter's fault.

No. It would have been perfectly possibly for a more competent and less dreamy US president to prop up the imperial regime or make sure that of all the rebel groups it wouldn't have been the mad mullahs who took over. Heck, Carter could have made sure that Khomeini wouldn't return to Iran. Or he could have supported Shapour Bakhtia's regime that was toppled by the mad mullahs.

The president was not exactly powerless; except that Carter was because he didn't make the decisions.

Iran had regional influence and never needed a break from US influence. Germany never had a break from US influence and that was ultimately good.

What Iran needed was a break from fundamentalist Islamist influence which it had suffered for a decade in the 70s ever since the mad mullahs started using their network of mosques to agitate against women, Bahais, Christians and Jews in the country.

Carter misread the situation and because of that the world lost the greatest country in the world to the closest we have to "forces ov evil" in this century.

You'd be surprised how many people in the world want to be more like Americans. But they usually don't demonstrate on the streets because those who don't are a violent lot. But whenever people anywhere have a chance, they buy American products and become more western. That's why countries like Iran have laws against Barbie dolls. The truth is that most of the people there do not really hate the US or what the US do. But those who do hate the US (regardless of what the US do) are louder and more violent.

Liberals tend to listen to the loud (and often violent) rather than observe the markets. That is true for foreign and domestic policy.

In general liberals will have to learn that the truly oppressed are not the ones we see protesting openly on the streets with gigantic posters displaying their demands.

Iran had plenty of influence under the Shah. The world listened to Iran and the Shah was widely respected. Before the Iranian revolution there was no need for an Iraq/Iran balance of power because the two were not fundamentally and utterly opposed in every way.

The enmity between Arab nationalism and the Shah was nowhere near as bad as the enmity between Sunni-supported Arab nationalism (the Iraqi Baath party) and Shiite fundamentalism.

What the US should have done was support the Kurds against the Baath government. The Shah supported them too (until it wasn't possible to do so any more) and a victory for Kurdistan (the Kurds are like the Persians an Iranian people) would have been a huge boost for the Shah's popularity in Iran.

And you yet you don't think Carter screwed up...

Russia itself is a buffer zone. Neither Hitler nor Napoleon were slowed down by the countries surrdounding Russia.

Are you crazy? Napoleon lost most of his army become getting to Moscow, due to attrition. It was a freaking long march.

Hitler's had to went trough Poland, the Baltic States, Belaruss!

1) The missile shield doesn't work, and it's a VERY expensive failure. Why? In tests, the interceptors can hit other missiles -some- of the time, and the experiments are already a farce because they know ahead of time the exact details of the other missile- it's trajectory, source, destination, when it's going to be fired, AND that other missile is travelling in a  nice straight line.

The Russians invented missiles years ago that do not travel in nice straight lines -and- I highly doubt that if anyone ever were to launch that they would call ahead of time and tell us the location of the launch site, when they were going to fire, the target they were trying to hit and the speed and altitude their missile would be reaching.

2) You can't afford it. This is billions and billions of dollars down the drain, as well as the couple trillion spent on the Iraq war, as well as hundreds of billions spent of Afghanistan, as well as the hundres of billions spent on the 700 military installations outside of U.S borders around the world, meanwhile the U.S economy is still in the crapper and things aren't looking too rosy anytime soon.

3) The missile shield should have never -ever- gone into eastern Europe in the first place and Russia doesn't have to 'give anything' in return. Why? Because back when the Soviet Union dissolved, there was an agreement between George Bush (senior) and Gorbachev. The USSR would disband, take it's troops out of eastern european countries and so forth and in exchange, NATO forces were not to move any further east than Germany.

This agreement was honored by Bush senior but then broken by Clinton and then openly rejected by Bush junior. In exchange for currying favor with a few small countries the U.S lost Russia as an ally.

And it didn't have to be that way. Putin actually wanted and tried to be an ally with the States but was essentially backstabbed several times in a row and now they're pretty much aligning with China when they could be on our side instead.

Yep, that was real smart indeed.

That freaking long march was _through Russia_, not through buffer states.

The "buffer state" at the time was Prussia, which provided tens of thousands of soldiers for Napoleon. In fact a quarter of Napoleon's army were Germans. Which buffer states did you have in mind between Prussia and Russia at the time?

Poland didn't exist when Hitler attacked the Soviet-Union. The Baltic states and Belarus were part of the Soviet-Union at the time.

In that case I don't understand why Russia is so worried about a system that cannot possibly work against their rockets and was said not to be about Russia at all.

I would like to see a source for the agreement.

I know about a treaty that forbids NATO troops (except German such) from being stationed in East-Germany (and as far as I know there are no non-German NATO troops in the area). But while I have heard about the agreement you mention, I cannot at the moment recall which treaty it was.

The territory that was once part of Russia at the time isn't anymore (Belaruss) Any with mechanised military, you need longer buffer zone anyway.

Oh, I must be mistaken then. What country Hitler attacked that caused England to declare war on Germany?

I know that country was separated between Russia and Germany.

Which I understand has little impact on the Napoleonic war you were talking about.

Again, which buffer states were you talking about?

You are mistaken regarding the timeline. When Germany attacked Russia, Poland was already gone. To claim that Poland was a buffer state the Germans had to march through and that such a march slowed Germany down is to deny that Russia had already by that time annexed half of Poland and bordered Germany when Barbarossa started.

In general your knowledge of history seems to be a bit detached. You remember buffer states between Napoleon's army and Russia and between Hitler's army and Russia when in reality the invading armies crossed the border directly and were slowed down not in buffer states but in Russia itself.

Prussia bordered Russia directly after the third partition of Poland in the late 18th century and before Napoleon's invasion of Russia. There was no buffer state between the two, not even one. And Nazi Germany also bordered Russia directly when Hitler attacked the Soviet-Union (Belarus was a tiny Soviet republic, not a border state).

While Poland and some of the other East-European countries were indeed set up as buffer states, they didn't act as such thanks to appeasement. They certainly didn't slow down anybody and no invasion army was crippled in any way because it had to march through them.

Are you being deliberatly obtuse?

Russia's border effectively had been changed many times over history. Today's borders of Russia in Eastern Europe are far less reaching than they were in Napoleonic time, or after their conquest of Poland.

Hitler had to go trough Poland, and you are quite stupid for not considering that I was referring to a FREAKING TERRITORY!

Russia always needed a buffer TERRITORY to protect its mainland. That territory can be part of Russia (inthe past) or as a client state (Belaruss). You really want to find fault into Obama's behavior so much that you cannot even understand such basic concept?

If you think it took 50 years of containment you never studied history. Containment did not work and the change in strategy is what did it. Under containment we reduced our military just as we are doing now, we played chess with nations, we played publicity games and gotcha games. None of it worked. What worked was rebuilding the military, standing up to the USSR and getting in their face at times. The Soviet Union could not keep up with the spending on all fronts and fell apart. That did not happen until Mr. Reagan changed the game and within 10 years they were gone.

I am so sorry you think that 50K dead Americans was just a small tactical loss.

Okay you really don’t know history. Iran had been our ally since before WWII, Europe begged us to join NATO to threaten the USSR. Turkey had been an ally at least since the end of WWII. Pakistan became an ally after 9/11 when Mr. Bush told them pick a side ours or theirs. Pakistan abandoned the Taliban a group set up and funded by Pakistan to be our friend. Because of that Pakistan is on the verge of being taken over by the Taliban now that the liberals withdrew their support. You are correct to say that Mr. Nixon started the ball rolling but that was not 50 years ago. Mr. Carter took office and withdrew support for the Shah of Iran allowing the islamoterrorists to take over. They were so grateful to the USA that they started Hezbollah, and five other terror organizations as well as taking our embassy. Iran and Egypt were our allies until Mr. Carter took office we have lost them both during his time in office. Those two countries were keeping the peace in the Middle East and had signed peace agreements with Israel. Mr. Carter brokered the deal with Egypt after he stabbed Iran in the back. The islamofacist then murdered the president of Egypt paid for by Iran. Mr. Carter has always hated Israel and left them without and ally in the region. So even if your theory that we had this great master strategy starting with Mr. Nixon it was undone by the next president and had to be started from scratch with Mr. Reagan and undone by Mr. Clinton. Lucky for us the USSR had fallen apart by then and our biggest worry was Iran and the terrorists they spread around the world.

No, I am saying it out right. I even pointed it out in my forthcoming book, (Silent Thunder) You did not know that Mr. Carter forced the fall of the Shah of Iran allowing the radical fundamentalist to take power. Now our president is doing the same things Mr. Carter was doing how much more damage do you think he will do before he is booted from office.

All missiles travel in a nice straight line, well a ballistic arc. This is why we are able to pick up the launch within 12 seconds of launch and know its destination 60 seconds into the 30 minute flight. We have trouble with sub launched missiles on a low arc because it only takes 6 minutes from launch to impact. For that to work they need nuclear submarines to do that at less than 500 miles from our shore.

Oh, please tell me which missile this is, the SS-20, SS-6 the SS-4, SS-18. which ICBM is it that has this magical power. Now if you are talking about cruise missiles, that is not new they have limited range of about 1200 miles from launch. The trade off is that they travel slowly, under 500 miles an hour and can easily spotted by our fighter jet radar. That is the reason we use them against countries that have lousy air forces’ You know the ones that have Russian fighters.

That was called Poland, by joint agreement Poland was attacked by the USSR and Germany. Germany turned around and attacked the USSR going through Poland and several hundred miles into they USSR the first two days. So much for a buffer. At the time the nation of Poland did not exist because it had been split up between Germany and they USSR.

It was. Please tell me the incredible treath your national securit suffered because you lost the war in a freaking jungle in the middle of South-east asia.

Yhea, neither could I think of one. U.S.'s military dominance over its waterways still was supreme, and no one was thinking that you were conquerable, ever after you turned tail. Your country will know wins and losses in those small warfare, but the whole point is that the U.S.A. are clever ennough to make sure these "small warfares" will never happen on their territory.

The other countries that you could not afford to engage, to merely slowly contained into victory.

1953: CIA operation to put the Shah back in power.

You haven't joined NATO because Europe begged you. You have joined NATO because it was in your best strategic advantage to contain USSR.

You mean, the exact same moment USSR started to be your ennemy? What a coincidence!

Who is ignoring history now? Go back to your study book, and shut your mouth until you know what you are talking about mate.

Clue: India was ally with USSR.

Actually my good man it is none of the above. It is the SS-27 (ground) and SS-NX-30 (submarine)

This is a missile that is able to accelerate much faster than most ICBM's, has a flatter balistic trajectory than most and is designed to maneuver evasively on re-entry.... meaning that in the terminal phase, which most interceptors are geared towards, the re-entry vehicle or multiple re-entry vehicles DO NOT travel in the nice straight line that can be easily plotted.

There has NEVER been a succesful interceptor test of a missile that was deviating from a linear trajectory, and even then the interceptor can only hit the missile some of the time.

The latest generation of SS-27's are going to have multiple independent re-entry vehicles for between 4 to 6 warheads, all of which will have evasive capability -and- there will probably also be a couple of decoys thrown in there as well.

The beauty of it? The Soviets had this missile back in the mid-90's, we knew about it and BILLIONS of dollars have been spent on a platform which isn't even close to being able to take down something like the SS-27.

The U.S missile shield program is a prime example of a multi-billion dollar waste of a boondoggle. Just like the B-2 bomber, of which only 21 were ever built because each one has a price tag of 1.5 billion and can't land in most theatres because they can't handle inclement weather, need special bunkers to protect them on the ground, and need something on the order of 30 hours of maintenance for one hour of flight time.