Well, Putin only threatened to hang Saakashvili by the balls: he didn’t actually do it. And he behaved with restraint in his response to blatant provovation by Georgia. America could learn a lot from Putin’s cunning use of the iron fist in the velvet glove. America is always the iron fist in the iron glove and that is very destructive because there’s no where to go if it doesn’t work since you’ve already used up all your tricks. This is precisely what happened in Iraq and is now happening in Afghanistan.

Putin’s myrmidon, Medvedev, is now talking softly proffering carrots while Putin in his cloak and dagger role has retained the big stick. For the time being, that is.

Iran, the US tells Russia, is the reason for building missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia knows that’s inane. What about Israel? They’re stocked with the things. We gave them to them. Besides no one has come out to defend the technology-considered untenable-in this offensive weapons system. Or, more probably, it may well be another DOD boondoggle. A bluff even. Another stupid idea of Cheney and Rumsfeld’s in their unilateral never-cease-fire grand guignol scheming politics. Whatever!

That this former adversary-cum-tentative companion has changed its tune is a clear sign that change is in the atmosphere. This opening up is really a breath of fresh era. This reversal may attend to fortunes but, guardedly, to a reversal of mindset.

Even Iran seems to be in a conciliatory mood. I hope the new administration will seize upon it and move quickly to sound it out. I have great hopes for global communication, reciprocal, mutual of course. But the fact that it’s pending is cause for rejoicing. A meager bone, perhaps, thrown to us indicating willingness to begin discourse. Isn’t this better than the the old, hackneyed redundant invective( the axis of evil)?

Yet I don’t want to get to charged up about it either. Why? Well, I support Obama but I’m not sure he will be able to take advantage when the moment’s ripe. Or ripening. He’s already got too much heaped on his plate and might have to scrape some of these appetizers to the sidelines. But gosh, I can gush, can’t I!