Don’t mention the Russians! Barack Obama’s Missile Defence claims are ridiculous

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: September 21st, 2009
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The White House must think the American people were born yesterday if it believes they will buy the president’s claim that last week’s missile defence surrender had nothing to do with Russian pressure. As for the leaders and citizens of Poland and the Czech Republic, they have been contemptuously cast aside as expendable pawns on a Russian manufactured chess board. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Barack Obama responded to his critics by declaring:

“So my task here was not to negotiate with the Russians. The Russians don’t make determinations about what our defense posture is. We have made a decision about what will be best to protect the American people as well as our troops in Europe and our allies. If the by-product of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran, you know, then that’s a bonus.”

Watching Obama’s performance, it was as if the ghost of Neville Chamberlain had reappeared claiming his Peace in our Time proclamation had nothing at all to do with Nazi German aggression and intimidation. No matter how hard the Obama administration tries to spin its shameful betrayal of American allies in central and eastern Europe, this was appeasement on a grand scale, the likes of which have not been witnessed since the late 1930s. Obama’s denials that Moscow’s opposition had dictated his decision were about as convincing as Gordon Brown’s ludicrous assertion that the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber had nothing to do with the Labour government.

There has been a great deal of misinformation put out by the Obama team over the past few days claiming the decision to renege on its Third Site missile defence commitments was based on a reassessment of the Iranian threat, and the development of alternative sea-based missile interceptors. This is simply a smokescreen for what it cynically calls the “resetting” of relations with Moscow. The missile defence move was purely political – it had nothing at all to do with advancing American security interests.

The dropping of Third Site was all about bowing before the Russian bear as part of a broader effort to clinch an agreement on nuclear arms reduction. Obama’s naïve vision of moving towards a nuclear free world trumped any concerns over US national security or the defence of its European allies. Little wonder Vladimir Putin has been smiling like a Cheshire cat.

As last week’s missile defence deal showed, President Obama is obsessed with his strategy of engagement with dictatorial regimes and hostile powers, whether in the form of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, Burma or Sudan. It is based on disdain for American global power, and a belief that the leader of the free world must constantly apologize for his country’s past. It represents the humbling of a superpower on the world stage, and is the most assured path to American decline.

The great Polish freedom fighter Lech Walesa put it well when asked about the White House’s concessions to Moscow: “the Americans only cared about their interests. They used everybody else’s”. Barack Obama is abandoning America’s allies while currying favour with her enemies and strategic competitors. The Obama administration’s reversal on missile defence will damage America’s standing in Europe for a generation, and projects a clear message that America will desert its friends and kowtow to its foes in the name of the new Obama doctrine.