PUTIN-IRAN AXIS

MSNBC/AP: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit Iran. Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

I have looked into Putin's eyes and seen the soul of an autocrat and an adversary who has joined the Axis of Evil. Putin is helping Iran, Styria, and North Korea. That makes him part of the problem, not part of the solution.

It is HIGH TIME we fomented an ORANGE REVOLUTION in Russia! More HERE.

UPDATE: NRO has a MUST READ on Russia by Ilan Berman. EXCERPT:

Moscow's renewed maneuvers in the Middle East have everything to do with ideology. Over the past year, Putin's increasingly authoritarian governing style has succeeded in eliminating any semblance of serious domestic opposition to the Kremlin, giving the Russian president virtual carte blanche to formulate foreign and defense policy. Worse still, this growing political mandate has been mirrored by the revival of unhealthy notions of Russian greatness and geopolitical opposition to the United States. Whether these ideas actually benefit Russian national interests in the long term remains to be seen. But for the United States, the Kremlin's counterproductive policies in the Middle East — and the corrosive ideology underpinning them — are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

UPDATE #2: CAPT'S QUARTERS has MORE. And MORE HERE and HERE. And HERE. And HERE.

More at OTB. Check it out.

MORE HERE AT SECULAR BLASPHEMY, (hat tip ROGER l. SIMON.)