If This is How Obama Treats Our Friends…

For the Poles and Czechs, only one letter needed to be changed.

Poland and the Czech Republic (really Czechoslovakia) have had bad experiences with the West.  They were sold down the river by England and France just before WWII again after it when the Allies let the Soviet Union absorb them and now it looks like President Obama will teach the lesson that there are no friendships among nations.

Ever since Ronald Reagan took office and proposed missile defense (or “Star Wars” by its detractors) every Republican president since has been a strong supporter of this technology.  Under the presidency of George W. Bush missile defense tests were almost completely successful.  This system is vital to our national security what with North Korea having tested many missiles and Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon.  George W. Bush pushed hard for countries like Poland and the Czech Republic to agree to host future missile sites, much to the consertnation of Russia.  The Russians were so angry that they said:

Russian military officials have said Poland is opening itself to attack by agreeing to deploy the U.S. rockets.

But trusting Washington (a big mistake as it turns out) was not the smart move now that President Obama is going to appease Russia and use missile defense as a bargining chip to gain their “help” dealing with Iran.  Investor’s Business Daily said it best:

What sense does it make that after Ronald Reagan wins the Cold War by refusing to abandon missile defense, the United States offers it as a bargaining chip to an increasingly menacing post-Communist Russia?

And where is the wisdom in withdrawing plans to use missile defense to protect the liberated former Eastern Bloc states against a Russian aggressor willing to wage war with the former Soviet state of Georgia and use the Ukrainian pipeline to starve Europeans of natural gas — all to prevent its former satellites from aligning with the free West?

Is it any wonder that the Poles and the Czechs — who have only known freedom for a short time — now long for the days of President George W. Bush, a president willing to help them defend their liberty against aggression?

Our young, new president has reportedly written a secret letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offering to give away the proposed missile shield if Moscow helps stop Iran from building long-range nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama supposedly had 300 foreign policy advisers during his presidential campaign.

Couldn’t one of them have told him that it was Russia who provided Iran with nuclear experts, gave Iran technical information stolen from the West by Russian spies, and is building and delivering fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant?

They don't work if they're not deployed.

Not only is this policy of appeasement stupid, but it will seriously damage the credibility friends and foes put into the word of the United States.  Friends will be less likely to help and foes will see that when the chips are down, Washington will surrender.

It certainly will make the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic look very badly:

Both governments have signed preliminary agreements with Washington that would see 10 interceptor missiles stationed in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic. Their decision to sign the agreements angered Russia and has been unpopular domestically.

European diplomats say the prospect that the Obama administration might suspend work on the programme risks leaving the Polish and Czech leaderships twisting in the wind.

The irony of course is that much of the nuclear technology that Iran possesses is from Russia and now we are throwing our allies under the bus in order to secure “help” from the country that allowed Iran to get to the point where it is now.

Appeasement has never worked throughout history.  Chamberlain appeased Hitler and he invaded Czechoslavakia.  Jimmy Carter indicated to the Soviet Union that Afganistan wasn’t his concern so they invaded (Carter responded by boycotting the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow), and now Barack Obama is set to appease Russia.

When Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev met Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, he hoped Reagan would be willing to trade SDI away in exchange for arms control agreements and vague promises of making nice with America.

Reagan said no. As a result of his steadfastness in defending America in the Cold War, we won, and they lost.

When Barack Obama campaigned for president he said he would bring change to the Oval Office.  Unfortunately for countries like Poland and the Czech Republic who have angered their largest neighbor for, as it turns out, nothing in return, it wasn’t the kind of change they had in mind.

At least President Obama is on it:

A senior US official said the Obama administration was focused on the issue but it had much else to manage.