The Growing anti-Western anti-American hostility~~Have they fooled you too?

In "Putin's Hostile Course," The Washington Times
[link to washingtontimes.com]
published the following on Oct. 18, 2007: "Indeed, at virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests."

Putin humiliated U.S. Secretary of State Rice and Defense Secretary Gates by forcing them to wait 40 minutes before meeting with them in October; in a TV appearance immediately after the meeting, Putin slammed U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense radar system in the Czech Republic and Patriot missiles in Poland, claiming that America was launching a new arms race.

Yet Russia has been dealing arms as it did in the Cold War days, selling an air defense missile system to Syria and providing Hezbollah with antitank missiles that it used against Israel in the recent war. Putin has also announced Russia's eagerness to reenter the world market as a supplier of military aircraft. He is threatening to pull Russia from the treaty that barred nuclear missiles from Europe and another that limited the level of military forces between the Baltic and Black Seas. Nominally in retaliation for the U.S. proposal to place 10 Patriot missiles in Poland (an anti-missile system for protecting Europe from an Iranian missile attack), Putin is threatening to retarget Russia's nuclear missiles at Europe.
[link to www.globalsecurity.org]

In open defiance of American and Western opinion, Putin publicly declared Russia doesn't view either Hezbollah or Hamas as terrorist organizations. And on a recent trip to Tehran, he backed the Iranians' right to develop "peaceful nuclear energy," lending cover to Tehran's thinly disguised end run toward the nuclear weapons club.

During that same Iranian trip, Putin warned the United States not to develop energy pipelines through one of the former Soviet republics on the Caspian Sea. Washington (and, likely, the EU) would like to secure access to the region's vast oil and gas reserves without having to transit Russian territory. With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he announced that all five Caspian states had to agree before any energy pipeline could be implemented.

A joint Russian-Chinese military exercise was held in conjunction with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) last August. SCO members include Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At the time of the exercise, Russian newspapers ran articles calling the SCO an "anti-NATO alliance" and a "Warsaw Pact 2," although Putin downplayed the idea.

Reportedly, Washington's requests to attend the SCO sessions as an observer have been denied. Iran's president, on the other hand has twice been invited as a guest of honor; Iran would like to join the alliance, which has a NATO-like pact of, "Attack one of us, and you attack us all." That would significantly raise the ante in any possible military action by the United States against Iran.
[link to www.martinfrost.ws]

While Putin is increasingly unhinged in his rhetoric, China isn't yet willing to growl at Washington. The Chinese have their own agenda of becoming an economic superpower and need the American markets for now.

Russia misses the superpower influence it once wielded on the world stage, and it will blunt the edge of America's policies anywhere it can. Vladimir Putin has become a master at it, and it looks as though he will continue in this role for the foreseeable future.