Beating Swords Into Bargaining Chips

IBD Editorials ^ | March 3, 2009

[Kaslin]

SDI: A Russian-built reactor undergoes operational tests in Iran. Tehran orbits a satellite with an ICBM. Are we about to trade away proven missile defense for unproven and unreliable Russian diplomacy?

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and our new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Friday. One of the topics on the list is sure to be something we have warned about — the trading away of American missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic for vague Russian promises to help with the Iranian missile and nuclear threat.

The Russian daily newspaper Kommersant reported on Monday that President Obama had made just such a proposal in a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The BBC reports that Undersecretary of State William Burns, who delivered the letter, told the Russian news agency Interfax: "If through strong diplomacy with Russia and our other partners we can reduce or eliminate (the) threat, it obviously shapes the way in which we look at missile defense."

"We have received signals from our American colleagues," Medvedev said in an interview with Spanish media on Sunday. "I hope these will turn into specific proposals. I hope to discuss the issue, which is extremely important for Europe, with U.S. President Barack Obama."

Obama and Medvedev are scheduled to meet in London on April 2.

[Zhang Fei]

President-for-Life Ogabe’s not trading it away - he’s using Iran as an excuse to dismantle the Missile Defense program, which leftists hate because it presents the possibility that the nation’s enemies might not be able to kill most of us in a nuclear strike.

[FrdmLvr]

Great title!