Why Scraping the "Shield" is Good Policy.

The Obama administration announced today it was scraping the Bush era's missile defense program. The republican response was no surprise, John Boehner (R-OH) said “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.” The fact is though that regime he is talking about (Iran) is not capable of attacking Europe. Their arsenal contains short and medium range missiles but those can only reach neighboring middle eastern countries and Israeli. I have no doubt that if Israel felt threaten they would neutralize the threat. It's also important to realize that the nuclear factor with Iran barely exists, at earliest experts predict they could have nuclear capabilities by 2015.

These neo-conservatives like Senator Jim Demint(who said we "have signaled weakness") are so fed up on protecting America and her allies they forget that we can diplomatically solve the nuclear problem with Iran. On Oct. 1st the UN security council, is going back to the tables to negotiate Iran's nuclear program. The bottom line is we want Russia on our side. This is a chance for real progress. Why risk dismantling Iran's nuclear program for a missile shield that is not only over budget, but also provides no real security benefit. Even if Iran did back out of the talks we would at least be in a better position to ask Russia to place economic sanctions on Iran.

The fact is many democrats have been tossing around the phrase "reset" and if you ask me this is one way of starting. Exerting our influence on a less than democratic Russia is key, not only in nuclear negotiations, but also trade policies. After the announcement Putin said he would meet with CEO's of GE, Morgan Stanley and TPG one of the worlds largest private equity firms. At present BP and Royal Dutch Shell are the main players in Russian oil market, but given time American companies could be allowed into Russian oil fields. America gave up a less then mediocre missile program and look at the prospects we now have.

TLH