Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Bush's Missiles Missing Their Target?

It seems the Czech Republic is now asking for “definitive proof” of an Iranian ballistic missile threat before it allows the notoriously unreliable THAADS anti-missile missile system to be deployed there (and in Poland).

There is no threat from Iran. Even if the Iranians launched their current longest range missiles from the most westerly point in Iran, they could just hit inside the Ukraine. Anywhere else and it would fall into the Black Sea. Iran has no geo-political, financial or ideological reason or interest to “attack Europe”—it has more valuable “friends” there than anywhere else.

The scheme was to deploy the missile detection units in the Czech Republic and the missile launchers in Poland to counter any Iranian “threat”. With the newly elected liberal Civic Platform party’s announced intention to pull Poland’s 900 soldiers out of Iraq by next year it's clear Poland's partnership with the US has changed and this in turn affects the Czech position as a ‘partner’ in the system's deployment. No doubt the Czechs have also been pressured by Putin.
Unless Poland and the Czech’s are now holding-out for some more significant incentive ( more money?) to satisfy the US, it looks like it is back to the drawing–board for Bush and his ballistic buddies.

The entire system has been a boondoggle from the start--it is a weapon that is dependent on a condition of at least an armed standoff between the US and some other obvious ICBM-equipped state (i.e. Cold War II). Given the global economics that drive most international politics these days such a situation is nigh impossible.

The money and time has already been wasted, but now with apparently nowhere to deploy and time running out on the Bush administration hopefully we will be done with this contentious and pointless political chess piece once and for all.

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