Smarter Than The GOP

My visit to Watching America was a brief one this morning, primarily because I found what I was looking for almost immediately. I was interested in seeing what our European allies had to say about President Obama's decision to pull the plug on the Bush administration's Missile Defense System. I suspect this op-ed piece from Germany's Der Tagesspiegel is pretty representative.

...The whole matter revolves around whether or not Iran poses a credible threat. Either Bush is right in maintaining that Iran is making progress working toward a nuclear bomb and the long-range missiles to deliver it at least as far as Israel, Europe and U.S. military bases overseas; in that case, there must be plans in place to counter that whether one likes Bush or not. Or Obama is correct in his new approach: Tehran isn’t making the technological progress they need, as many had feared. In that case, the West can postpone – not abandon - defensive measures and give diplomacy a chance to dissuade Iran from its plans via sanctions and incentives. ...

Obama is considering only those sober facts concerning U.S. interests. He considers the missile shield a technology that doesn’t yet work against a threat that isn’t yet imminent at a cost that would be uncontrollable. Besides that, locating such a shield in Poland and the Czech Republic only serves to hinder any agreement with Moscow concerning heftier sanctions against Iran. The projects in Eastern Europe, therefore, will be halted because their cost is higher than their worth. If a missile defense system becomes necessary, it could be based in Turkey or on naval vessels. [Emphasis added]

Which is essentially what I said here, and what Sec. of Defense Gates and President Obama said on Thursday. And as to the GOP whines about selling out Poland and the Czech Republic, the columnist even has that covered:

...One side effect of the policy change: the disappointment with the United States is pulling Poland and the Czech Republic closer to Western Europe. The chasms opened during the Bush years have been closed at least a little.

Why, yes, I believe that covers things nicely. Too bad the Republicans can't see the light, but considering where their heads appear to be lodged, that isn't too surprising.

Been Down So Long

The news has been dreadful for months, at least from this liberal's perspective, but I read something this morning which caused me to smile a little. Unfortunately, the news came in an AP article, which means I won't be quoting from the article itself.

Unnamed sources in Poland and the Czech Republic told the AP that President Obama has called leaders in both countries to advise he would be pulling out of the Defense Missile Program agreements with them made by the Bush administration. The plans were for US missiles to be placed in Poland and a radar site to be placed in the Czech Republic, both on Russia's door step. Russian leaders were understandably infuriated by the plan, and this has complicated US-Russian relations since the Bush administration announced the agreements.

Now, as far as I can tell, the Missile Defense System still hasn't been shown to be workable, even when the tests are designed so heavily in favor of the system that failure would seem impossible. The whole idea was based on President Reagan's "Star Wars" fantasy program, sold to him by the military industrial complex decades ago, but as designed it just doesn't work. That didn't stop George W. Bush, by golly, and he pressed forward, ratcheting up tensions with Russia unnecessarily.

One Russian official quoted in the AP article has suggested that the Obama administration's actions are designed to elicit more support from Russia in dealing with Iran. If that is the case, well, then, bravo! We need Russia's help with Iran. Giving up a fantasy system that will probably never work and has cost us billions to get that support sounds like a splendid idea.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is scheduled to give a press conference today, and the anticipated subject is the Missile Defense System. Hopefully Secretary Gates will announce at least the cancellation of these two aspects of the project, if not the shelving of the whole mess.

That would be change I could believe in.

Don't Forget Poland

While most of the world watches the Georgian crisis unfold, another crisis is brewing, and the potential for another conflagration has risen considerably. Earlier in the week, Poland signed an agreement with the Bush administration to allow elements of the US missile defense system to be placed on Polish soil. Russia has made it clear that it will not tolerate any such placement right from the start, but that hasn't deterred the Bush administration. Russia, consequently, has just raised the rhetoric. From a Reuters report in the NY Times:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Russian general on Friday said Poland's deal with the United States to set up parts of a missile defense shield on Polish territory lays it open to a possible military strike, a Russian news agency reported.

Col-General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the general staff, told Interfax that Russian military doctrine would allow for a possible nuclear strike.

Poland agreed on Thursday to host elements of a U.S. global anti-missile system after Washington agreed to boost Poland's own military air defenses.

"The USA is engaged in an anti-missile defense for its own government, and not for Poland. And Poland, in deploying (elements of the system) opens itself to a military strike. That is 100 percent," Interfax quoted Nogovitsyn as saying.

While a nuclear strike on Poland is highly unlikely, some form of military action is certainly a real possibility, which Russia's actions in Georgia make clear. Why the US didn't put a hold on talks with Poland while the Georgia crisis played out is somewhat of a mystery, although the current administration's history of fanning flames certainly provides the necessary back story.

What is especially maddening is that certainly at this point there is little evidence that the envisioned system will even work even if it is cobbled together. That hasn't stopped Mr. Bush. Apparently we are back to playing high stakes poker with our old nemesis.

I hope somebody blinks.

Our Ms. Brooks: Bush And Putin

Rosa Brooks' latest column takes a look at the relationship between President Bush and his counterpart in Russia, Vladimir Putin, and likens it to a marriage that has soured. In the earliest stage, President Bush looked into Putin's eyes and saw a kindred soul, as he so famously told us. Well, in retrospect, it appears that our president was right, but not in the way he would have has us believe. Mr. Putin, like Mr. Bush, said all the right things, but then went off and did what he wanted both at home and on the world stage to consolidate his personal power, much to the detriment of Russian democracy and the rest of the world. Mr. Putin turned out not to be the ideal partner Mr. Bush thought he had.

But like most marriages of convenience, it soon frayed. Putin refused to support the Iraq war in 2003, and by 2005, his government had launched a rollback of Russian democratic reforms. Bush was left helplessly on the sidelines, insisting that "Vladimir" had privately assured him of his commitment to democracy, and "when he tells you something, he means it."

Even so, U.S.-Russia relations got worse. By 2006, when Bush spoke of his hope that Russia would someday be "like Iraq, where there's a free press and free religion," Putin was openly mocking: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq." By February 2007, Putin was denouncing U.S. foreign policy as having "nothing in common with democracy." Rather, he said, it was "an almost uncontained hyper-use of force ... in international relations." By summer 2007, Putin was threatening to point missiles at Poland if the U.S. deployed a planned European missile defense system.

Was this a simple case of naivete by BushCo? Well, to some extent it was, but more was involved in the deterioration of the relationship.

If U.S.-Russia relations have soured, much of the blame lies with the Bush administration. Despite Bush's claims of friendship, the U.S. has generally treated Russia as a washed-up power, eager to learn at our feet and grateful for the occasional crumb of U.S. attention.

The Bush administration arrogance is certainly a major source of the problem. Who could have imagined that Russia would take offense at the deployment of US missiles in parts of Europe close to its borders? Well, most of us figured that out early on, and I'm sure there were plenty of people in our government who could see the potential problems, but their concerns (and ours) were brushed aside.

So now Mr. Bush is on his way to Russia for meetings with his good friend, ostensibly to try to save the relationship, and Ms. Brooks has a suggestion on how he can succeed:

In a universe run on fact-based pragmatism, not ideology, Bush would use his visit to Russia to accept the offer Putin put forward last summer: to open up an American-European-Russian dialogue about missile defense, one that might include intelligence sharing, technological cooperation and jointly operated missile defense installations -- some in locations offered by Moscow. We'd gain Russian goodwill and retain the freedom to try to develop missile defense systems that actually work. Russia would gain reassurance that no U.S. missiles are pointed its way -- and lose an excuse for bullying its neighbors.

Yeah, right. As if George W. Bush is capable of fact-based anything, especially when he's just gotten a stinging rebuke from NATO members who didn't want further expansion by adding more of the former Soviet Union countries.

Personally, I think taking away Bush's passport for the duration might be a more sensible way to ease world tensions.

290 days.

3 Card Monte

One of my weekend treats is going over to Watching America to read other countries' press reports on the US. Some of the articles are from sources I've never heard of, so it's hard to be sure just how much of the criticism is accurate and how much is propaganda. Of course, for the past ten years or so, I've had similar problems with US news outlets as well, so I've had some practice in skeptical reading.

At any rate, I came across this article from a source called China Military Online. It has to do with the ongoing negotiations between the Unite States and Russia over the missile defense system the US wants to install on Russia's doorstep, which apparently are still not going well if this article is to be believed.

Back in October, the Secretaries of Defense and State met with their Russian counterparts in Moscow to discuss Russia's unhappiness with the US plans. At those meetings, the US delegation representatives indicated a willingness to compromise on a number of factors which rankled the Russian leadership. However, the latest proposal submitted to Moscow somehow omitted at least five of those proposed compromises.

The United States has deleted five compromise proposals in a document received by Russia in November on the U.S. missile defense plans in East Europe, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

One of the concessions the United States showed willingness to make at October's talks but did not mention in the Nov. 21 document, was that it not activate interceptor missiles before there was authentic evidence of existence of ballistic missiles threatening Europe, the Russian ministry said.

Others were that American interceptors would not be placed in silos; that they would be dismantled if a missile threat were eliminated; that the United States would join forces with Russia in checking whether any missiles had been launched in the Middle East or western Asia ...; and that Washington and Moscow would make joint decisions on how to react to missile threats, one of them being that U.S. officers be stationed at Russian missile defense facilities, the ministry said.

Now it is entirely possible that when Secretaries Rice and Gates returned to Washington other administration officials decided that the proposed compromises involved giving up too much. If that's the case, however, why weren't our delegates given clearer instructions before they made the trip to Moscow? Are our foreign policy people that inept?

While diplomacy has never been this administration's long suit, this kind of behavior seems to me to be even too stupid for BushCo. I think a more likely scenario involves a kind of bait-and-switch tactic. The US, after all, would like Russia's cooperation in turning the screws on Iran as a possible run-up to a war, so it was important in October to soothe the Russian's ruffled feathers somewhat, even if only temporarily.

Whatever the actual situation, at this point the Russian feathers have to be in full ruffle because they've been treated as if they were too stupid to notice. The proposed missile defense system in Europe was a questionable idea to begin with. Now, it's getting to be the kind of idea which could easily be the cause for a new military build-up contest between the US and Russia, and nobody wins in that kind of contest.

What might be equally as damaging, however, is that we have just given further evidence that as a nation, our word cannot be trusted on this or anything else. And that is going to haunt us for years to come.