Well, that certainly makes the game more interesting
TEHRAN, Oct. 16 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told a summit meeting of five Caspian Sea nations in Iran today that any use of military force in the region was unacceptable and in a declaration the countries agreed that none of them would allow their territories to be used as a base for launching military strikes against any of the others.
(--the New York Times)
Iran might not have any nuclear weapons and thus be considered a fair target by the certifiably insane leadership of the United States (and the only-slightly-less insane leadership of Israel), but I'd suspect that the the ex-USSR still has several thousand nuclear devices that are still capable of putting large radioactive dents in the surface of the earth. And, look, Putin is threatening to withdraw from the intermediate range nuclear missile treaty, too, so if he wanted to tweak the west he could turn around and sell Iran a handful of deterrence and there'd be nothing anyone could do aside from either whining or starting a global thermonuclear war.
The diplomatic geniuses in the B*sh junta keep finding that speck of lead in the river of gold. I wonder if the United States will ever have adults running it again?