When you wish upon a star...

Makes no difference who you are... (unless of course, you're Russian.) Then you can wish all the wishes you want...

MOSCOW (AP) - If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order. [Wait a minute... haven't I already read this book?]

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership. [I missed something, are they easy to ignore or aren't they? Because I'm having a pretty easy time ignoring them...]

"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy—a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend. [But how's that possible when the world already ended in 2007?]

The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the U.S. that has been flowing from the Kremlin[Cute little fella ain't he?] in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.

Putin, the former president who is now prime minister [Is very, how you say, interesting.], has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy. [Gadin's Law! Gadwin's Law!]

Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources. 

He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now. [I coulda told you that we would meet our demise eventually. No nation lasts forever. Good general statements there, Panarin.]

But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End"—when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control. [I'm laughing... This is just too good. It's totally steriotypical Russia in the movies. "Ve vill conquor vorld. Give Alaska bak!"]

Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men. [I'd point out: This, and this. As for the number of gay men, they'll all be gone in a generation.]

Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.

"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."

Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar. [I'll give him one thing: the man's got ambition.]

Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely. [Dem Fightin' words...]

It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise. ["But... But... That's the United States' fault... not ours."]

Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur." [So there.]

But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.

"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP. [I tend to agree, I don't see us falling apart anytime soon. I do, however, see some changes on the horizon, some reformations, some economic upturns. The main reason I don't see this happening anytime soon is because the world is so depentend on the US that they would try hard not to let the US fall.]

In closing, I'd just like to mention that the Pope says that "All nations are bound to fall at some point, but the nation of God is eternal. Oh, and I did cut these words out of the story: "before Wednesday" I'll let you decide where they fit in.