PUNISHING OUR ALLIES - AT 7:55 A.M. ET:  The foreign policy of this administration can be summarized as, "Punish our friends, reward our enemies."  Of course, on the Democratic left there are no enemies, just misunderstood cultures with alternative narratives.

Now, military analyst Peter Brookes warns of another Obama cave-in on foreign policy that can have severe consequences for East European allies who have stood with us since the end of the Cold War:

THE Obama administration is getting ready to throw the proposed Eastern European-based US missile-defense system under the bus. The move is a sop to the Russians (and to lefties here at home) -- but will render us increasingly vulnerable to the growing Iranian nuclear/missile threat.

It's sheer madness -- yet another major foreign-policy fumble in its Pollyanna-ish effort to make everything right with the world.

That says it very well.

...Team Obama will likely can the W-era missile-defense system slated for Poland and the Czech Republic. The system would defend us (and Europe) from Iranian nukes/missiles, but the Russians hate it because it's in their old stompin' grounds.

And good American leftists will always try to please the Russians.  Oh, the nostalgia for the revolution.  Oh, the songs!

Our Polish and Czech allies, who were close to us under President Bush, now increasingly feel Obama is abandoning them as he acquiesces to the growing shadow of Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe -- and elsewhere.

Indeed, they're carping about being in the dark as Washington conducts a review of missile defense, despite all three governments having agreed to move forward with the program last year. (So much for Obama's promise of better foreign relations . . .)

Well, there are important countries and unimportant countries.  Obama's list isn't the one we used for 50 years.

Albert Einstein once said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result. But that's what US policy has come to in dealing with Iran on its nukes and missiles -- six-plus years of talks have gone nowhere.

Instead of heeding Einstein's wisdom, Washington will likely ditch our best short-term defense against Tehran's threats in order to appease Moscow -- while hoping against hope to sweet-talk the mullahs into giving up a 20-year effort whose success is finally in sight.

COMMENT:  And we the people may never know the extent of the failure.  Even if Iran gets nukes, we may deny it in the absence of a large-scale test.  Or, we'll start talking Cold War-style deterrence.  By the time Iran develops an important capacity, Obama might well be out of office, and we'll be left with the damage.

September 8, 2009