Weekend Edition: Just Say No to Peace

credit: Johnson's Russia List

The Obamatron's major foreign policy accomplishment, besides the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, is the renewal of the strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia. But that accomplishment, achieved against the determined opposition of war mongers in Congress, is in danger of being unraveled. President Medvedev said last week that Russia would target proposed European missile defense installations. The statement undoubtably gave some NATO member countries pause. What apparently prompted the Cold war sentiment was the collapse of negotiations with the United States over what kind of missile defense could be installed in Europe that would be acceptable to Russia. The sticking point remains that Russia wants more than repeated assurances from the United States that the system is intended to counteract a nuclear armed Iran, a possibility that is becoming more likely according to the UN's latest assessment of Iran's mostly secret nuclear program.

Medvedev told Russians last Wednesday that negotiations with the United States over a missile defense system located in Europe were over. He said Russia would withdraw from the new START treaty if the impasse over missile defense continues to deteriorate, and promised to install mobile Iskander tactical nuclear missiles [image] in the European enclave of Kaliningrad as part of his military's countermeasures to a missile system which his government believes could be used against Russia nuclear deterrent. President Medvedv implied that conservative legislators in Congress were responsible for the inability to reach agreement, saying "legislators in some countries openly state the whole system is against Russia". Russia views the US led missile defense program as a "fait accompli" that could in "6 to 8 years weaken our nuclear deterrent." War mongers in Congress categorically refuse to allow a legal pledge from the United States to Russia that it would not use a missile defense system in Europe to cloak its own offensive nuclear weapons, or engage in a cooperative system of sector defense as proposed by President Medvedev.  They called the effort to provide missile data to Russia and consultations on the building process "was never realistic" since the Russians "seek to limit US missile defense by any means." The Unites States pledged not to limit its deployment plans for a European missile shield despite President Medvedev's statement. It announced a new radar site in Turkey that can detect low trajectory missile launches from Iran (Shahab-3) as well as southern Russia in September. US espionage efforts to counter the Iranian program were seriously knocked back by Iran's rolling up of US informant networks.