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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (596897)	1/4/2011 7:47:11 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570737

The Anti-Reagan: Obama Botches Missile Defense Agreement with Russia John on January 4, 2011 at 11:43 am Before he was even elected, Barack Obama was promising he would cut missile defense programs (at 30 sec.): In September 2009, Obama made good on that promise when he unilaterally reversed course on two-year old, Bush-initiated plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe. The shield was ostensibly about Iranian missiles, but the Russians saw it as a destabilizing influence. Here’s how NPR reported it at the time: Many in Moscow believed that missile defense was secretly aimed at containing Russia. When Obama took office, he said that wanted to “reset” U.S. relations with Russia, and by ending the European component of the missile defense program, he removed one of the biggest stumbling blocks to that goal… There was additional resentment that former Soviet bloc states like Poland and the Czech Republic would be hosting the U.S. facilities. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once likened it the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when Soviet officials tried to station missiles in Cuba. Nile Gardiner, writing for the Telegraph, simply labeled the move appeasement: This is bad news for all who care about the US commitment to the transatlantic alliance and the defence of Europe as well as the United States. It represents the appalling appeasement of Russian aggression and a willingness to sacrifice American allies on the altar of political expediency. A deal with the Russians to cancel missile defence installations sends a clear message that even Washington can be intimidated by the Russian bear. It probably didn’t help that the announcement of the about face was made on the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland but, that aside, those involved in the negotiations saw it as capitulation to Russian demands: “I think it was a friendly gesture [to Russia]; I believe it was influenced by the Russians,” says former Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, who led missile-defense negotiations with Washington until last summer. “We have a number of signals coming from Russia that they’ve been working on Obama for the past several months.” Actually, Obama didn’t kill the plan outright. What he did was push back the ground based missile bases in Poland and a planned radar installation in the Czech republic and instead rely on a ship-based system. All of this took place just months before the expiration of the START treaty. No doubt Obama saw his “reset” with Russia as a first step to getting a replacement treaty. On December 5th, 2009 old START ended, but the Russians continued to balk. The planned missile defense shield (even the diminished one) was still a problem for Russia: Analysts say Moscow wants a clause in the new treaty that would limit the scale of any US defense shield. The US has shelved plans for missile defense stations in Central Europe, but intends to use a sea-based system. Asked by a reporter what was the biggest problem blocking a new treaty, Mr Putin said: “What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one.” “By building such an umbrella over themselves, our [US] partners could feel themselves fully secure and will do whatever they want, which upsets the balance,” the Russian premier added. Notice that fully one year ago the Russians were saying they wanted “a clause” on missile defense in any new Start treaty. And when the new treaty was eventually signed in April of 2010, it contained just such a clause in the preamble. George Stephanopolous scored an interview with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shortly after the signing. His first question was about whether disagreement about missile defense could still scuttle the agreement: Here’s Medvedev’s answer: As a result of this very complicated deliberations, we got to the formula which is being included in the preambles of the treaty. That formula says there is an interconnection between the strategic offensive arms and missile defense. So if those circumstances would change then we would consider it the reason to jeopardize the whole agreement. That doesn’t mean that because of that rule if the American side starts to build up the missile system, the treaty would automatically lose its power. But if the other party radically multiplies the number and power of its missile defense system, obviously its defense system is indeed becoming a part of the strategic offensive nuclear forces because it’s capable of blocking the action of the other side. So an imbalance occurs. And this would certainly be the reason to have a review of that agreement. Now jump forward to last month. One of the big “wins” racked up by the lame duck Congress was the ratification of Obama’s START treaty by the Senate. Before it was passed there were conservatives who brought up the missile defense linkage in no uncertain terms: “START straitjackets the United States missile defense capabilities,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said on the Senate floor. Obama sent a letter to the Senate stating that this was not the case: The New START Treaty places no limitations on the development or deployment of our missile defense programs…We believe that the continued development and deployment of U.S. missile defense systems, including qualitative and quantitative improvements to such systems, do not and will not threaten the strategic balance with the Russian Federation, and have provided policy and technical explanations to Russia on why we believe that to be the case. Now, as Ed Morrissey noted yesterday, the Russian Duma is moving to clarify the linkage that Obama says is not there: This is our reaction on the US steps, which are not justified because you cannot selectively validate or invalidate certain provisions of the treaty. We are quite consistent here. We said that the entire treaty, the preamble and the articles have the same judicial force. This is logical and this is right. Here’s how Guy Benson summed up the situation: The Russians are (again) asserting as non-negotiable the precise treaty interpretation that the White House assured wavering Senators they had no reason to fear. This very question was the subject of hours of debate on the Senate floor, when START quarterback Sen. John Kerry repeatedly intoned that the preamble’s missile defense language was meaningless. It’s now abundantly clear that the pesky passage was far from the “throwaway” paragraph Kerry vowed it was, and that Moscow won’t honor America’s toothless opposition to the handful of troublesome sentences. From the Russian perspective, those few words are a central pillar of the agreement’s overall attractiveness. Looking back at Putin’s and Medvedev’s own statements one wonders how the Obama administration failed to grasp the situation. Even if one wants to argue that this is a post hoc move by the Duma, the fact remains that it is a very predictable one. Ultimately the Russians can’t enforce the agreement over our objections, but this does cast doubt on the value of the treaty itself and on Obama’s skill as a negotiator. After kicking our own allies in the teeth and 18 months of work, he’s produced a treaty which is immediately a source of strife, not on some subsidiary point but the central point of the negotiations. Is this really the big win we’ve been hearing it is? When state-controlled Russian media celebrates Republican’s defeat in the Senate, perhaps we should consider that a clue: verumserum.com