The Obamaiad

Early this month, Obama favored Jeffrey Goldberg for a second time with a deep dive into his thinking about the Middle East. This time (for once) I'm going to keep my precis short.* And dear reader, please help me out of a metrical jam by internally pronouncing "neocon" really fast:

Obama, to clear neocon fog,
unburdens himself to Gold blog.
"Though our power's not puny.
we'd have to be loony
to get between Gog and Magog."

And then we were whipsawed off to another quarter:

Czar Putin instructed Lavrov:
"It's time to go full frontal Slav.
As lost lands we gobble
and countries uncobble,
proclaim it's 'from Russia with love.'"

Kerry to Lavrov: "Please think twice
before crushing Ukraine -- it's not nice.
If you're gonna play rough,
we can do...lots of stuff
to put Putin's balls in a vice."

Lavrov said to Kerry, "Look, Buster,
your boss had best dial back his bluster.
From Syria to Iran
Putin will, cause he can,
engulf you in global fuck-cluster."

*The versifying bug was passed on this time around Laura Rozen, who tired of rough prose for a spell last week. Healthcare reform was trigger (or victim) of the last outbreak.