While President Barack Obama was having a private talk with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, he apparently didn't know that his microphone was on and he told Medvedev that after his "last" election was over he would have "more flexibility" on the Eastern European missile defense system. His claim was jumped all over, mostly by conservative commentators, whose main complaint was the Obama should have demanded a price for any U.S. concession.
Since the anti-missile shield is intensely hated by the Russian government, Obama, in effect, was saying that if he got re-elected he would have more room to either trim the shield or remove it. Conservative critics fumed that he should have traded a concession on the shield for a more cooperative attitude on Syria on the part of the Russians. Critics of Obama have focused on the wrong issue: the anti-missile shield is a carry-over from the George W. Bush delusional belief that if Iran develops a nuclear missile capability it might fire missiles toward Eastern European countries. The only change Obama made in the Bush proposal is that he changed it from a defense against long-range to short-range missiles.
It was a mistake for Presiident Barack Obama to have adopted a much more modest version of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars fantrasy. Obama should begin a retreat from his embrace of anti-missile missiles. If he can get concessions from Russia that would be in the foreign policy interest of the United States that would be supportable; however, the important needed change in policy is to prepare the political ground for the removal of the Eastern European anti-missile shield and to stop the waste of money on anti-missile missiles.
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