Putin comes through...

In what seems to be a classic case of "Good cop, bad cop", Russia has pulled out of the Iranian nuclear project.

I'm going to vent a little. On the right, there has been a streak of Putin Derangement Syndrome, in which he has been taken to task constantly. Never mind the fact that the sales to Iran really did little to make them more dangerous (China, by providing C-802 missiles, and North Korea, which sold ballistic misiles, probably have done more for Iran). A lot of them forgot that the Cold War ended in 1991, and we won.

The fact is, we have big fish to fry, to wit, the war on Islamofacism. A key ally in this is going to be Russia. They not only have better HUMINT capabilities than the United States does, we can also get their help in other areas (like cutting off spare parts to countries like Syria, Sudan, and Iran).

In this case, Putin has come through for us. He also managed to help the Russians make a fair bit of cash off this. It was played very well, and it is safe to assume that we probably got a fair bit of intelligence as well.

There's a lesson to be learned in this. Jumping to conclusions and demanding purity are good ways to lose friends. Putin might not be an angel, but he's not hostile towards us. There's no need to pick fights with him.