Thursday, September 24, 2009

US and Iran

There are several interpretations of the reasons why Pres. Obama decided to cancel the anti-missile shield that was going to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. The authorized version, as explained by Obama himself and Secty. of Defense Gates, was that the US military came up with an improved version of the radar system, that could be deployed elsewhere and yet could cover the area of Eastern Europe without any loss of efficacy.
Another interpretation is that in order to improve the strained US relations with Russia, Obama felt the need to cancel this deployment and show PM Putin and Pres Medvedev that the US really does not mean to target them. Although the justification of the Bush Administration for this anti-missile deployment was to protect Europe from Iran, that reason was not believed by Russia and its allies. If that was Obama's reason, then it bought two responses, first Russia is reportedly cancelling its own deployment of missiles in the Russian region of Kaliningrad, and second it may mean that Russia will be more cooperative with the US in the UN Security Council in its bid to apply stronger sanctions against Iran.
Yet another explanation is that it was another step in Obama's program of showing the Iranian regime itself that he does not mean to threaten them and that he wants to show them that he is indeed their friend. By cancelling the Bush system he hopes to allay the fears of the Iranians that he is as anti-Iran and as aggressive as Bush. No-one who is an expert on Iran thinks that such maneuvers will have any effect on Iran whatsoever. In fact, it may encourage them to regard the US as even less serious than the European countries that Iran has been stringing along for years, and lead to Iran ignoring all US threats.
A few months ago Obama and his spokesmen went to great lengths to emphasize that their warnings to Iran were not open-ended and that they would end in September. So September is here and nothing has been done. Iran boasts that it has installed even more centrifuges to enrich uranium and defies the international community and nothing is done. When will they get real? If not they can hardly blame Israel for not accepting this situation with equanimity. This will be in essence PM Netanyahu's message in his speech to the UN General Assembly today.

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