Putin a marked man in Iran? Whatever

Putin calls off -- er, delays -- his trip to Iran because Russian intelligence claims that he'll be targeted for demolition by suicide bombers. I hate to be this flip in the Age of Terror, but I've gotta say: Whatever. Unless we're talking about some Chechens who bought tickets to Tehran, I'm really not buying that something would happen to Vlad visiting a regime that he couldn't be more kiss-kiss, huggy huggy with at the moment. Iran needs veto-wielder Russia to stonewall action against its nuclear program at the Security Council. Iran also needs Putin -- who's pretending to be the great peacemaker in this situation -- to divert attention as they enrich their uranium. And as far as suppliers... well, let's just say they have BFF written all over them.

And let's be serious -- when the Russian secret service is hot on the trail of a supposed assassination plot, it's not exactly something they'd put on the front-page news. Hence the word "secret." It is, however, worthwhile to cook up a bit of faux news as a P.R. stunt: Putin braves suicide bombing threats to trek to Tehran to make "peace" (cough cough)!

A hard-line newspaper in Iran said it all:

"Iran can use the visit to lobby for getting our nuclear dossier out of the U.N. Security Council and Russia can strengthen its opposition to the U.S. through boosting ties with Tehran."

Ahhh, so cozy....