Two devils dancing – Putin and T – and I’ll bet that one of them doesn’t understand that he’s only a puppet, with the strings being pulled by the other devil.
I am not a foreign policy expert by any stretch of the imagination, and I have way more questions than answers, but as a human who is able to draw a dotted line from one thing to another, it does seem the height of hubris to not take note of the fact that a head of state assassinating the head of another head of state is opening Pandora’s box. That would be true even if that whole region wasn’t a volatile powder keg. Right? Or are we so far past the looking glass up is down?
I don’t know whether Politico‘s take is right or wrong or somewhere in between, so I’ll leave it to those more expert than me to hash that out.
As Tehran was being pounded by U.S. and Israeli bombs on Saturday morning, its top diplomat dialed Moscow’s number.
That made me think of all the people frantically calling T for help on Jan 6, looking for help and getting none.
On the other end of the line, according to an official Russian statement, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered his Iranian counterpart sympathy and promised his — verbal — support.
Iran, thus, became the latest country after Syria and Venezuela to feel firsthand what partnership with Russia does, and doesn’t, mean.
Since launching its full-scale war in Ukraine four years ago, the Kremlin has flexed its rhetorical muscle as the flag bearer of a so-called multipolar world. But, at decisive moments, its response on the ground in allied nations has been conspicuously anemic as their leaders came under attack.Iran now threatens to become the latest example of the discrepancy between the Kremlin’s big talk in the face of American hegemony and the real world where that hegemony is increasingly on full display.
For Tehran, Moscow’s lackluster response should come as no surprise.
Frog, meet scorpion. No, wait, is there a story where they are both scorpions? And one is more poisonous than the other?
The writing has been on the wall since at least last summer, when — during a 12-day war with Israel that included a massive U.S. assault on Iranian nuclear sites — top Russian officials similarly offered statements of condemnation but no action.
In the months that followed, Moscow has tried to contain the damage. It has defended the Islamic regime’s right to quash protests, which they, reports suggested, used Russian military equipment and technology to put down.
And Moscow has publicly cast itself as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran, proposing to store enriched uranium stockpiles on Russian soil.
Is everything related to foreign policy simply kayfabe now?
In the hours after Saturday’s attack, many social media users dug up Putin’s comments from June 2025 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, where he defended Russia’s “neutral” stance during the first U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
Russia’s failure to intervene in Iran undoubtedly represents a reputational blow on the global stage. But it also might bring some spoils of war.
Moscow will be hoping to deflect attention away from itself by highlighting the West’s — and particularly the U.S.’s — failure to live up to international norms.It is also likely to entrench the Kremlin’s rigid position on Ukraine, which it has consistently framed as a defensive move against Western aggression.
“It will be difficult to convince Putin that he was ever wrong [about the danger of the West,]” said Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist affiliated with University College London, on Telegram. “To the doubters he’ll point to Tehran and say: ‘It could have been us.’”At the very least, if U.S.-brokered talks on peace in Ukraine break down, Moscow will have its talking points ready.
Oh my god – IF the US BROKERED TALKS ON PEACE IN UKRAINE BREAK DOWN????
Are we actually pretending that the US is a legitimate actor here? And that the President of Ukraine is going give up?
I laughed at T being called The Peacekeeper. The president of the US is being mocked – deservedly so – on the national stage.
Among the first Kremlin figures to react Saturday was the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council and former president, Dmitry Medvedev.
“The peacekeeper is at it again,” he wrote on X, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump. “The talks with Iran were just a cover. Everyone knew that.”
If there’s one thing in this article that I know to be true, it’s that diplomacy with T is pointless. Will Putin’s last move on the chessboard be to knock over Trump? The only thing I know for sure is that these are dangerous times.
Fyodr Lukyanov, a Russian foreign policy adviser to the Kremlin, went as far as suggesting that the events in Iran show that diplomacy with Trump was “plain pointless.”
Moscow will be hoping that is the message that stays with its remaining allies — rather than its own inaction.
I am looking forward to hearing from BJ peeps who are more knowledgeable than me in this arena.
Discuss!
WaterGirl
If there is ever a day where I was happy to have the distraction of working, today is definitely one of those days.
A Ghost to Most
Maybe the christians should not have chosen him THREE times
cmorenc
Trump taking out Iran’s supreme leader raises an obvious question: how secure is Trump, really, from being taken out by a hostile foreign power’s agents – especially when he’s at Mar-a-Lago and away from the elaborate defensive shielding of Washington DC and the White House grounds? I’m honestly not sure a specialOps mission from wherever that successfully mounted such an effort to take Trump out would be better for the interests of the US at large, rather than patiently forcing the Trump Admin to unravel and sink to pariah status within the US, outside an incorrigible shrinking core of true MAGA believers. There’s also the fact that if Trump dies, we are still stuck with JD Vance and his cabal of fascist tech billionaires.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
LMAO! This is like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Since when has Putin’s government ever attempted to live up to international norms? Pretty sure declaring unprovoked war against a neighbor violates international norms. They can make whatever bullshit claims they want about western aggression, but Ukraine was never any danger to Russia, nor had any intention to ever attack them.
It was always about grabbing whatever resources they could and trapping tens of millions of more people behind their borders because of their faltering demographics/population
Odie Hugh Manatee
The US has just legitimized Russia’s attack on Ukraine while also proving that the US is not a country to be trusted any more. Bibi finally got what he wanted, us to attack Iran and do the dirty work for him. All he had to do was destroy Biden and the Democrats in 2024 with his indiscriminate bombing of the Palestinians and then goad Trump into acting by throwing the first punch at Iran.
America is not to be trusted any more. Our credibility is gone and we are “that” country now. China is looking like a more mature, reasoned nation compared to us.
Ohio Mom
@cmorenc: If some other power took out Trump, we’d still be stuck with Vance and most likely, Miller, Vought, etc.
And we’d go crazy like we did after 9/11, who knows how we would lash out.
I’m with you, the better (not good, better) option (as if we have a choice) is to patiently wait this out (Patiently includes protesting, campaigning for Democrats and all the usual legal methods of furthering the transfer of power).
cmorenc
@Ohio Mom:
Yep, exactly.
rk
What exactly can Russia do to help Iran? Putin has screwed over his country with the Ukraine fiasco. They can’t help militarily, can’t even carry out a proxy war.I can’t imagine that Russians have anything to blackmail Trump with so that he would stop. Everyone knows Trump is a corrupt, dirty old pedophile. Releasing some videos is going to have no impact. You can’t shame a shameless man. Trump’s big advantage is that he’s completely mad, unpredictable and stupid. At this point Putin should be scared of Trump. Trump is fully capable of firing nuclear weapons at Russia. There’s no method to Trump’s madness.
Ohio Mom
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You left out the part where Bibi dragged his feet and prevented any process that would have freed the Israeli hostages. By refusing to resolve things, he hurt Biden, helping to pave the way for Trump.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Aside from that whole “Taiwan” thing. And the genocide against the Uyghurs
JCJ
Monday night I went to see Nine Inch Nails in Milwaukee. One of the songs they performed was I’m Afraid of Americans. Thinking of that a lot lately
Shalimar
What was Russia supposed to do? They can’t even take ground in Ukraine with the help of Iran’s drones. Their relationship with Iran was simple: currency for drones. Iran needs their own drones now. Russia doesn’t have anything they can help with.
Martin
@A Ghost to Most: Hey, we’re bombing Muslims as God would have wanted.
different-church-lady
@cmorenc: At this point we’re all just passengers on the crazy train.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ohio Mom:
Yup, that’s the truth. Bibi knew Biden couldn’t do anything without bad press and angering different groups. Looking back, I wish Biden had told Bibi and Israel that what they were doing was wrong and there would be no more weapons for that purpose.
As it is Biden fed Bibi’s war machine and paid for it, giving Bibi a two-for. I am so over Israel now, so over it. Their announcement of having completed their objectives in Iran and being done with their part is a huge smack in our faces of them using Trump to attack Iran and then leaving us with the bag.
Fuck Israel’s government and the enablers who put them in power. Israel has fucked us over in a variety of ways for decades (USS Liberty, Pollard, etc.) and they are an ally in name only.
Israel is the ally of Israel and that is the only nation they like and trust.
Fuck them all.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Two things, Baka. Look at us… we got that beat by a huge margin.
Scout211
Well, by all accounts, this attack on Iran has been a success. The media is all over it, all day, all live updates, all news stories.
Operation Epic
FuryDistractionAnother Scott
About what one would expect from Politico, I think. :-/
Darth Putin is often more accurate, and much shorter.
Bingo.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
piratedan
@Shalimar: yeah, one of the unexpected ripples of little thought of outcomes might be fewer drones for Russia to use against Ukraine, while the Iranians send them after whoever the fuck they can in retaliation, be they US targets or other targets of opportunity, say UAE, Yemen, Iraq, Israel and whoever else may come to mind.
Who knows if there is any kind of Iranian spy/terrorist networks ready to wreak havoc anywhere in the west? I certainly don’t expect THIS administration to know because I don’t think that THEY take Iran seriously. After all, we just Pearl Harbored them, had them at the negotiating table in complete bad faith and then attacked them sans any credible cause.
So who knows if there’s any Iranian terrorists out there? The US certainly won’t be getting any 5-eyes intel nowadays. Also, pulling shit like this may cause VP to put pressure on this shitty administration to end it sooner rather than later, so Putin can continue to get his drones and Trump can spend a few billion in ordnance outlays and then walk away and declare himself a winner and prevent it from even coming up for a vote?
circles back to the theory that the last guy in the room who has Trump’s attention wins.
coin operated
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Yes…they are. They’ve been building up soft power by building a burgeoning middle class and making it easy for visitors to come in and see all the progress they’ve made. YT is full of videos of Americans visiting…and sometimes becoming…ex-pats in China.
And, yes…I’ve thought about it myself.
Shalimar
Saw our asshole at the UN say this: “President Trump has met the moment.”
We just destabilized the biggest terrorist group funder/supporter of the last 50 years. Maybe don’t celebrate your own genius on Day 1 of the war?
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: People talk about J. D. Vance’s “negative charisma” but I don’t want to know what he’d do hopped up on the political rocket fuel of succeeding a Trump who’d met a violent end.
Chief Oshkosh
@cmorenc: Now let’s think about this.
What enemy of the US would want to kill Trump?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
It’s not a comprehensive list. They have skeletons in their closet, too. Both the modern PRC government and previous Chinese governments. Everybody does, if you go back far enough. They’re a totalitarian police state with mass surveillance that’s straight out of Eric Blair’s worst nightmares. And they don’t even pretend to care about human rights like other nations claim to. Their record on LGBTQ+ rights is horrendous.
I’m the first one to criticize US foreign policy and our failures to live up to our ideals
azlib
@piratedan:
I agree about the Pearl Harbor reference. It is the first thing I thought of when I heard the news.
eclare
@cmorenc:
I have wondered that too.
Parfigliano
@cmorenc: Looked at through the right/wrong lens fascist tech billionaires are world leaders too.
Jackie
@Scout211:
EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN!! EPSTEIN!!!
eclare
@Chief Oshkosh:
Pretty much all of them?
Parfigliano
@Ohio Mom: Hopefully the next DEM Admin policy concerning Israel will also include a hard look backward not forgetting the past.
Chief Oshkosh
@eclare: No enemy of the US will kill Trump. He’s doing way, way more damage to us than any foreign adversary could ever accomplish.
Gretchen
@cmorenc: Yes! Trump is famously paranoid and cowardly, but he sits in his lightly-secured club on the coast ordering other leaders to be assassinated or kidnapped, and it doesn’t seem to occur to him that he’s giving others ideas. How far is Mar-a-Lago from Cuba?
Parfigliano
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Amen.
Gretchen
@Chief Oshkosh: That’s true. If the whole administration was made of up Russian plants they wouldn’t do more damage than is being done. I’m sick about losing scientific research and talent for a generation.
YY_Sima Qian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The PRC is a police state if one wants to challenge the CPC regime, otherwise (which is the case for the vast majority of people) living there is not much different from other countries in E/SE Asia. It is not North Korea. More like an even more paternalistic Singapore.
The CPC regime suppresses LGBT+ activism, & keeps it firmly out of the mainstream. OTOH, it does not persecute LGBT+ w/ the zeal of US reactionaries. There is a reason Chongqing is called the lesbian capital of China, & Chengdu “Gaydu”. In fact, homosexuality being “icky” was a concept introduced by western missionaries in the 19th century.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: I know a number of openly queer people in China – at least open to social media outside of PRC. Hard to believe the govt isn’t fully aware of them. They don’t seem terribly concerned about oppression. I suspect like a lot of things, they wouldn’t be oppressed for being queer, they’d be oppressed because of something they did or said and their queerness would just be used as cover. Not really any different from how the US too often works.
Captain C
Another similarity between FFOTUS and Putin/Russia
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: On Chinese social media, especially RedNote, queer expression is hidden behind imaginative veils, but pretty thin ones.
Queer activism, like all social activism, is targeted by the CPC regime for suppression. The regime jealously guards its monopoly on political power & influence. However, if you do not challenge its monopoly, life is the modern China is quite comfortable, convenient & extraordinarily safe.
These days, what sets the PRC apart is generally competent governance & functional society, which is increasingly rare around the world.
Jay
@piratedan:
One of the Trumpcuses for attacking Iran is that they interfered with the 2016 and 2020 elections.
They did, the IRGC posed as Proud Boy’s and threatened minorities to try to prevent them from voting for Biden/Harris.
They also hacked in to “Never Trump” rethug emails in search of dirt to try to derail “Never Trump” Rethugs.
So they hacked and used social media to try to weight the election “for DJTidiot”.
Sortly after taking office, DJTidiot shut down all the teams an programs that shut down ruZzian, Iranian and Chinese attempts to “hack” the election for DJTidiot.
And to “thank” the Iranians for all their hard work and effort, to try to get him elected, DJTidiot bombs Iran.
Omnes Omnibus
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No, we did not legitimize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Telsiree
The lesson for every country in the 21st century is to acquire nuclear weapons ASAP.
Otherwise, you are not safe.
JaySinWA
@A Ghost to Most:
Sounds like a reverse Peter principle. They failed to deny him 3 times.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Omnes Omnibus
The precedent of using decapitation as a policy tool is going to have blowback.
Spanky
So now that killing the leader of your enemy is on the table, can we assume the US is prepared for, say, a drone strike on the White House? Yeah, I know there are defenses in place, but so do the Iranians, and they have never really been tested under modern warfare conditions.
Jay
@Spanky:
Enemies of the US, are not going to target Orangmandius. He is doing more damage to the US, than any of the US’s enemies ever achieved, combined.
Spanky
@Chief Oshkosh:
None that are basing their actions on cold calculation, but that seems in short supply worldwide, right now.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s what Russia is going to argue… they are doing it for security purposes to protect themselves.
Russia is going to Russia and they will use any excuse to muddy the waters. Trump handed them a doozy. I respectfully disagree with you on this.
Ten Bears
They’re both puppets …
HopefullyNotCassandra
@YY_Sima Qian: we had competent federal governance here plus freedom a little more than one year ago. We still have it in many states and localities without anybody being silenced for challenging Governor Newsom or Mayor Mamdani. Most of Europe has competent governance, peace, freedom and not even the notion of reeducation camps.
YY_Sima Qian
@HopefullyNotCassandra: You are talking about day to day governance, I am talking about decade to decade vision.
Considering the deep pathologies in the governance of CA & NYC, & the political paralysis & economic malaise in much of Europe, I would not call competent governance widely found. The austerity that Germany imposed on Europe post-GFC was economic vandalism. Likewise for Germany’s energy policy, shutting down mature nuclear power in a fit of moral posturing, became dependent on cheap Russian gas, & then switch that for dependence on expensive American gas.
In the case of Dem run states & municipalities, it is not always the fault of Dem governors or mayors, as they have little control over the macro environment.
I do have hopes for Mamdani, but there is only so much a NYC mayor can do, hemmed in by Albany & DC.
It’s not just liberal democracies that is suffering from decay, the malaise is afflict governments of all types (see Islamist Iran, Putinist Russia, Chavista Venezuela, the military juntas of Myanmar & Thailand, illiberal democratic India & Hungary, even the Persian Gulf monarchies).
Aside from the PRC, the exceptions I see are Vietnam, Singapore, Norway, & that’s about it. Everyone else have allowed socio-economic pathologies to metastasize over the decades, sending themselves into cul-de-sacs, unable to maneuver themselves out, & poorly equipped to navigate the onsetting chaos created by collapsed international order & worsening AGW.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Or a drone strike on Mar-A-Lago, which is right on the edge of the ocean, and has less of a structure of built-up defenses.
And drones being cheap, it would be possible for an adversary to throw dozens of them at Mar-A-Lago at once, and shooting down most of them wouldn’t be enough.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
All too true, on both counts.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: @HopefullyNotCassandra: @YY_Sima Qian:
I’ll just leave this here. Brookings.edu – Chinese Crime and Geopolitics in 2024:
Even with all the USA’s problems, especially when too many monsters have their hands on the levers of power, I’m with Biden in preferring the US system.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: I would strongly prefer the US system that is functioning as designed, but that is not the reality we live in, & has not been since at least mid-way through the 1st Obama term. That system has become completely dysfunctional by the Biden term, & he was unable to do much to reverse the decline (not all his fault).
The CPC regime has indeed leveraged Chinese crime syndicates for the purposes of transnational repression, & possibly espionage, there is no evidence that the general activities of such criminal organizations are directed by the CPC regime, nor is there evidence that the PRC government has exercised state power to shield such criminals from local justice. When the Indonesian Navy captures Chinese fishing boatings operating in its EEZ, & publicly blow up the vessels in a show of force, the PRC does not protest. When Ghana arrests Chinese gold miners for operating illegally, the PRC government does not pressure the Ghanaian government to release them.
There are many problematic to nefarious ways in how the CPC regime wields power abroad, criminal syndicates is far down the list, & among some of easiest to contain (in theory), all it takes is competent law enforcement.
Lest we forget, the US system allowed the CIA to collaborate w/ the Columbian cartels to fight “Communism” in Central America (ruining several countries in the process), while just about every US administration has turned a blind eye to the flood of US firearms going south of the border, arming criminal gangs of every stripe.
Mike in Pasadena
@cmorenc: What elaborate defensive shield in DC are we talking about? Are we talking about the shield that let a lone airliner loaded with fuel fly into the Pentagon on 9/11? One of the most shameful acts ever, a military HQ that was unable to even defend itself? Two millenia ago, the Romans knew enough to dig a ditch around its legion’s camps in Judea and construct a stockade on top of the resulting pile of dirt so that the legionaires could sleep safely. They even left an intervalium between stockade and tents so that flaming arrows could not reach their tents. But a country that spends a trillion per year on its military (“the mightiest military on the planet”) can’t defend its military HQ and its Capitol/capital? We cannot defend ourselves against a gang of Saudis armed with box cutters or a mob of slovenly incels armed with bear spray and flag poles on January 6. (Edited to add: I don’t intend to attack or offend cmorenc, I’m disgusted with our lack of defenses. My apologies to cmorenc if my rant appeared to be an attack. It was not intended to offend you.)