There is no mistake about this. Putin just convinced people that he is the adult in this situation, and that Bush and his TOADIE Secretary of State are loose cannons who can destabilize the region.

These folks screw up everything they touch.

Russian missile offer is ‘a major shift’ says Czech PM

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Russia’s offer to set up a joint anti-missile base with the United States to end a stand-off between the two countries is a significant move, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said.

‘I think that the Russian offer represents a major shift in (President Vladimir) Putin’s view of the problem,’ he told a joint news conference after a short meeting with his British counterpart Tony Blair in Downing Street.

The Czech Republic and neighbouring Poland have been at the centre of a row between the United States and Russia over the former’s proposed anti-missile defence shield in central and eastern Europe.

Washington, which says the shield is aimed at rogue states and not Russia, asked Prague earlier this year to host a radar tracking station and Warsaw to site 10 interceptor missiles to shoot hostile missiles from the sky.

Amid escalating Cold War-style language and threats, Putin sought to defuse the row at last week’s G8 summit by suggesting a joint Russian-US anti-missile base in Azerbaijan.

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