Israel Matzav: Putin kicks sand in Obama's face

Putin kicks sand in Obama's face

Remember those ads from comic books in the '60's where some poor shmendrick on the beach gets sand kicked in his face and then Charles Atlas comes and turns him into a bodybuilder? President Obama is looking more and more like the shmendrick, but Charles Atlas is nowhere to be found.

On Tuesday night, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that sanctions against Iran would be 'counter-productive.' And on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the threat of sanctions against Iran 'unneeded.'

Putin said the threat of sanctions is unneeded at this point because it could scare the Iranians, scuttling chances that talks with global powers could end Tehran's recalcitrance.

"If we speak about some kind of sanctions now, before we take concrete steps, we will fail to create favorable conditions for negotiations. That is why we consider such talk premature," Putin told reporters in China.

"We believe that we should treat this issue with caution, and there is no need to scare the Iranians," he said.

Yeah, let's not scare the Iranians. That might actually induce them to give up their nuclear weapons or to come out and fight like men. Instead, we'll be really careful not to scare them.

Is Barack Obama scared yet?

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Putin kicks sand in Obama's face

Israel Matzav: Israel's new patron?

Israel's new patron?

With Israel's relations with the United States on the skids, Israel has apparently decided - wisely - to play the field. Last week, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was in St. Petersburg to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While there are plenty of disagreements between the two countries, the New York Times reports that Lieberman - a native Russian speaker who immigrated to Israel from Moldova in the late '70's - and Putin hit it off quite well.

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Israel Matzav: Israel's new patron?