The Patriot Files Forums - Policy Flipping - upsets Poland & Czech Republics

Navy Times posted this artilce -

Analysis: Shelved missile shield entices Moscow

By Steven R. Hurst - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Sep 17, 2009 17:09:42 EDT

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is betting Moscow will return the favor by helping him blunt any nuclear weapons ambitions Iran might have.

In what could shape a major geopolitical realignment, the White House is scrapping a major irritant in the soured U.S.-Russian relationship: the Bush-era plan for a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

So far, only the United States has moved, Obama’s announcement Thursday.

The timing of the announcement, just days before Obama is to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the U.N.General Assembly, points to the prospect of deep bargaining to entice Moscow’s help on Iran.

The United States is concerned deeply about the possibility that Iran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover to build atomic weapons. Iran denies that but has refused to open the program fully to U.N. inspection. American intelligence and independent assessments from international nuclear experts both point to the possibility that Tehran soon will have a nuclear weapon. That would change the balance of power in the Middle East vastly.

Washington has tried to divert the Iranian course through a series of international sanctions aimed at isolating its Islamic government. Iran already is struggling economically and distracted by significant internal political upheaval over the recent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

However, the kind of painful penalties that might have been effective in altering Iranian behavior have long been blocked in the U.N. Security Council by Russia and China.

Both Moscow and Beijing have major economic links with Iran and fear losing those streams of income. Moscow does a big business in arms sales to the Iranians, and the Chinese are heavily dependent on Iranian crude oil.

As expected, Moscow was quick to lay down a marker against perceptions it was being bought off. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Thursday the Kremlin continues to oppose new sanctions, saying that would harm coming negotiations with the Iranians.

The Russians, however, can do a lot of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting. And Medvedev, notably, praised Obama’s decision Thursday as a “responsible move.”

Other prominent Russian commentators were more effusive, heralding the administration move as a seminal change for relations between the two countries.

“Now we can talk about restoration of the strategic partnership between Russia and the United States,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

Talks with Iran
As an alternative to the policies of former President George W. Bush, who refused to negotiate with Iran, Obama said he wanted to talk with the Islamic regime and set a Sept. 15 deadline for Tehran to respond. He promised to push for tougher sanctions, should Iran demur.

Tehran has responded, and talks among Iranian negotiators, the five permanent members of the Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — plus Germany are set for early October.

Obama took office promising to “reset” relations with Russia. He visited Moscow this summer to emphasize his desire to repair ties after they soured badly during the Bush administration, especially over the missile shield issue.

Obama said then the missile system was under review and would be built only if it would be effective. Those statements likely would have been taken as signals by Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the new American president understood Kremlin sensitivities about the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, former members of the Soviet bloc and close to the Russian border.

And in announcing Thursday that the program was shelved, Obama took cover against Republican political opponents by saying the United States would be deploying new technology and systems that would protect more capably against the Iranian threat than the Bush-era missile shield.

He said the new approach would protect against any potential Iranian attack with a more nimble system based on ships and not in Central Europe, for the time being.

He openly invited Russia to join in the effort, saying “we welcome Russia’s cooperation to bring its missile defense capabilities into a broader defense of our common strategic interests.”

Critics speak out
Predictably, supporters of the Bush policy and the missile shield were quick to denounce Obama’s changed policy, as did some politicians in both Poland and the Czech Republic who had spent political capital heavily by agreeing to accept the U.S. armaments.

Obama sought to salve those wounds.

“I’ve spoken to the prime ministers of both the Czech Republic and Poland about this decision and reaffirmed our deep and close ties,” he said, reassuring that they were protected under the NATO pledge that an attack on any member would meet a response from the whole alliance.

But even that fallout may be minimal. The majority of U.S. NATO partners, who were the core of the alliance before the Soviet Union dissolved, have been lukewarm to the missile shield from the start. And the NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the decision was a “positive step.”

Having given it his best with Russia, China is next. Obama has three whacks at that in short order. He is meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao during the U.N. sessions next week and again at the G20 gathering later in the week in Pittsburgh.

He can finish that sales job during a November visit to the Chinese leader in Beijing.