...fueled by record oil and natural gas prices and resentment of what he lambasted in February as Bush's "almost uncontained hyper use of force," [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has led global opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq , hosted Palestinians on the U.S. list of terrorist groups, sold anti-aircraft missiles and other arms to Iran and stymied Bush's drive to tighten U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
The Kremlin has steadily increased spending on defense modernization and revived symbolic long-range aerial reconnaissance patrols toward U.S. and European airspace.
Putin also has threatened to re-target Russian nuclear missiles at Europe if Bush deploys U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, declared his intention to trash treaties that eliminate a class of nuclear missiles and limit conventional military forces in Europe and compared the United States under Bush to Germany under Hitler.
The U.S.-Russian tensions are a far cry from June 2001 , when Bush declared after his first meeting with Putin in Slovenia that he'd looked in the Russian leader's eyes, found him "trustworthy" and "was able to get a sense of his soul."
(McClatchy)
Imagine that.
No comments:
Post a Comment