Vladimir Putin Is Running Out of Cards

There has been a notable absence from the Iran war, only occasionally rearing his head, and, even then, without much consequence: Vladimir Putin.

It tells a quiet story about the state of Russian relevance under Putin, one that sits in direct contrast to the gloating of some the Kremlin's livelier apparatchiks.

Iran is cementing a truth about Putin's Russia. For all the Kremlin's bluster, it is now a second-order power, one shaped by events more than it shapes them...