Friday, September 18, 2009

Turnabout on Anti-Ballistic Program: Will Poland and Czech Republic go ballistic?

Obama's dramatic about face on our long-range anti-ballistic program yesterday hopefully is the right thing for the USA. No doubt Poland and the Czech Republic are having a few twitches and are wondering if we are abandoning them in capitulation to the Russians.

In ironically unfortunate timing, the announcement was made on the 70th anniversary of Russia's invasion of Poland.

I have to believe that Defense Secretary Gates, who while under Bush supported the previous program, is correct in saying that the facts have changed and that Iran's greater threat is short and mid range missiles which are better thwarted by this new program.

Question: President Obama meets with Russian president Medvedev next week. Russia had vocally opposed our previous plan. If the decision was already made to switch strategies, why not use this as a negotiating tool next week in order to get Russian support on deflecting the Iranian threat? Seems like we threw Russia a bone, buried our allies, and could have tweaked the timing of the announcement just a tad.

Postscript 9-18-09 12:30pm Just read this column in the WSJ. If the writer is correct and Obama worked up an argument to complement his pre-ordained conclusion, I cannot print the words I feel.

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