Robert Gates

Boy oh boy, did Vlad the Impaler score big today. 

President Barack Obama on Thursday overhauled plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, promising instead stronger, swifter defence systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.

In a move that may ease tensions with Moscow but spur regional fears of resurgent Kremlin influence, Obama said he had approved recommendations from U.S. military leaders to shift focus to defending against Iran's short and medium-term missile capabilities."This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defences against the threat of missile attack," Obama said in a brief statement on scrapping plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland and a related radar site in the Czech Republic

Moscow said it would welcome the decision to drop the program, which had complicated U.S. efforts to enlist Russian support over Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms control.{...}

The new plan is to send Aegis destroyers to defend Europe against any rogue nuclear threats. Yeah, that'll work.  Like Russia wouldn't take issue with them cruising the Baltic. 

{insert slap to forehead here}

Failing to earn big points in the bonus round, the nimrods in the Obama adminstration apparently are unable to bookmark Wikipedia, because on this day seventy years ago, Stalin invaded Poland from the east, creating a second front for the beleaguered Polish troops who were doing their damndest to hold off the Nazis. 

Now, seventy years later, we're well out of the Cold War, but we have a ruler in Russia who seemingly longs for it, and enjoys rattling his saber and his natural gas supplies to get what he wants, signalling a return to Russian hegemony in what he considers Russia's historical sphere of influence.  President Bush puts forward a missile defense program, to, ostensibly,protect NATO members in eastern Europe from a rogue attack from Iran. The added benefit of the program is that no matter what its intended design, Russia doesn't like it.  These countries are its former satellites; part of Russia's former sphere of influence, and if Russia can't have them back in the fold, as it were, Vlad certainly, at the very least, does not want western influence in his backyard.  Then Vlad goes and invades Georgia. It's no coinicidence that Poland, which had been dragging its feet on the program, signed on a few days later.

Now, a little over a year later, our rube of a president, ostensibly to gain access to Russian train tracks for the shipping of supplies into Afghanistan, to avoid Taliban-infested routes in Pakistan, dumps this program entirely.

Just how far does a Ginsu go when shoving it into the back of a Czech or a Pole? Can you get that puppy all the way through their bodies, or is it just a flesh wound which will heal easily? Either way, don't expect either country to be on board with anything the US does for quite some time---as in until a new administration is elected.

What doesn't make sense is that this is, purportedly, for Russian rail access into Afghanistan.  THIS is the purported end game? It doesn't make much sense because the give and take is not proportional.  And as much as I would like to think Obama really is this stupid, he's got decent foreign policy analysts on his team who would prevent him from making such a deal. No, the deal only makes sense if the US is getting something else in return---like, say, Russia's cooperation at the UN Security Council when it comes to Iranian sanctions? Bigger, badder sanctions they've been blocking in the Security Council for some time because they're making too much loot selling Iran nuclear "power" components.

Next week, Obama planning to be the first US president to actually chair a meeting of the Security Council---"devoted to nuclear proliferation and disarmament."  Did he give up missile defense, in effect giving in to Russia (and Teheran, by the way), so he could make a bigger, bolder splash at the UN next week? Did Obama throw Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus to bolster his own international statesman whimsies?  Would he really go that far? 

Yep. I believe he would.  The guy's ego knows no bounds. 

If this is the case---that this move is, essentially, laying the ground work for Obama's big UN day next week---one wonders what other concessions will be announced in coming days.  There will have to be other concessions, because Russia isn't the only country who's been dragging their feet on Iranian sanctions: the Chinese have been blocking sanctions, as well. What is Obama going to give up to the Chinese to get them to play ball?  A lessening of pressure to get the PRC to control its neighbor, North Korea?  The removal of hasty and recent tarriffs on Chinese tires?  A withdrawal of the Navy from the Taiwanese Straits? Do tell! 

Just how much of "this" is Obama going to give up for "that"?  I suppose it all depends just how much Obama wants to become the international statesman of our time. Which, I gather, is rather a lot.