RIA Novosti

To begin with, I would like to sum up some developments. It has become obvious that the United States has lost Iraq, and that the situation there is quickly sliding down into a civil war, which will involve adjacent countries.

Reading recent speeches by some U.S. and NATO people, one might wonder how some Western officials who look so civilized on the surface can be deep down as distracted from reality and, in fact, as geopolitically irrational as only the most radical Islamists have appeared to be.

The row over Iran’s nuclear program will have major repercussions for Russia. It concerns this country’s vital interests, and even its very survival. For all that, this row should not eclipse a more general problem of nuclear weapons proliferation, which has become a reality.