Quote Originally Posted by mistysakura View Post
Also, if we ever doubted it, it's pretty obvious that the 'king' of Russia's chessboard is just that -- barely more powerful than a pawn and still being pushed around by the player.
For the record, that's the best analogy I've heard all year.

One has to wonder why Putin would want to get into a conflict with the U.S. I don't think Russia is nearly as strong as the U.S.S.R. was during the Cold War... what's his game? A power play to move American troops out of the Middle East? That seems extremely risky, though, even if they did benefit from the past oil agreements. Hrm.