LA Times article "Putin: the louse that roared" by Max Boot. (bio)

snip> "Putin's condemnation of the U.S.' "illegitimate" use of force was no more convincing, given the scorched-earth campaign he has carried out in Chechnya. While insisting that the U.S. needs U.N. sanction for its military actions — which, he failed to note, was granted in Afghanistan and Iraq — he argued that Russia needed no such approval in Chechnya because it was acting in "self-defense." (Try telling that to a Chechen.)

Or consider Putin's claim that the U.S. was starting a new "arms race" by deploying missile defenses to Eastern Europe. This from the largest exporter of arms to the developing world, with clients that include such charmers as Syria and Venezuela. Putin actually had the nerve to claim that Russia's sale of $700 million worth of antiaircraft missiles to Iran, which will surely be used to defend Tehran's nuclear program, was a public service: "We don't want Iran to feel cornered. We want them to know they've got friends."

Putin did not win many friends in Munich with such remarks. He alienated the audience even more when he turned from criticizing the U.S. to deriding the innocuous Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which seeks to promote human rights and free elections, as a "vulgar instrument." In fact, Putin did the United States a favor by scaring the Europeans and showing why a transatlantic alliance remains necessary.

So why did Putin choose to bang his shoe, at least figuratively, on the podium? Many analysts hypothesized that his remarks were intended for domestic consumption. Some thought that he might even be signaling that he does not intend to give up power when his term expires next year. There is no doubt that most Russians eat up such nationalist rhetoric, if only because it distracts them from their own decline."