Until September, Russia was ruled in a careful choreography: President Dmitry Medvedev was the face on a tough but reformist agenda that included the construction of Skolkovo, a richly financed version of Silicon Valley in the Moscow suburbs, and a more conciliatory approach to western foreign policy initiatives. Actual power was held by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who nevertheless in public was the "chest," spending much time traveling the country in service of showing off his physique and harpooning abilities.

On Sept. 24, however, Putin announced his intention to return as president in elections next year; he would swap with Medvedev, who would take occupancy of the lesser post of prime minister. It would be Putin's third term in the Kremlin, a home he surrendered in 2008 because of a constitutional limit of two consecutive terms.  Putin thought that his word, along with the largesse-enabling factor of high oil prices, were sufficient in terms of setting in motion Russia's next political transition. But on Sunday voters told him otherwise -- the ruling United Russia party received less than half the total vote, and had to cheat to get that much. Russians informed Putin that he will have to campaign for victory on March 4.

So why did the ostensibly long-suffering Russians turn on Putin and deny United Russia continuation of the two-thirds margin that it won in the Duma four years ago?

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A tail risk called Iran: Back in September, New York oil analyst Edward Morse wrote a paper called "Tail Risks and the Oil Market: Expecting the Unexpected." The paper (if anyone finds an open-sourced on-line link for all to avail, please let me know) describes the outsized impact of big surprises on oil prices -- "hurricanes, floods, refinery fires, tanker spills, accidents, terrorism, unpredictable geopolitical strife within OPEC," Morse writes, could drive oil prices through the roof, or just as easily cause them to collapse. That quality, he suggests, makes oil a great investment vehicle -- for those prepared to accept the risks, of course. I write about the role of tail risks this month in Alberta Oil magazine. Others have noted this general law of physics -- Nassim Taleb named it the "black swan" affect; coming from another angle, Stephen Greenblatt calls it "the swerve." For the rest of us, there is a focus on the pure impact on our lives, which at the moment includes what will happen with Iran. Will it develop nuclear weapons? If stymied by sanctions, imposed this week by the U.S. and Europe, will it send Hezbullah against Israel? Will it block the Strait of Hormuz?  Will it elect to withdraw its 2.2 million barrels a day of oil exports off the market, as the Financial Times' Javier Blas asks? The FT published a column by two British writers who suggest that we might be "sleepwalking into a war with Iran."

The Obama administration is attempting to navigate the shoals by shaking the stick of death-strike sanctions, but not actually imposing them. As this blog has suggested, tough sanctions can bite, but companies and countries eventually figure out how to bypass them through the good offices of smugglers and assorted other wily middlemen. Yet the tail risks remain. This is especially so with a nation like Iran, whose essence of power lies in its menacing hint of roguish mischief.

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