2008 Woodie Awards
Bush's new foreign policy approach comes far too late
Dan O'Gara
Issue date: 10/23/07 Section: OpEd Page
Lost amid the clamor over Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to Tehran last week was some very important news that could signal a major shift in U.S. foreign policy. After Putin's announcement that Russia would not stand in the way of the Iranian nuclear program and that no foreign power (read the U.S.) should ever dare to invade a Caspian country (read Iran), the U.S. made a shocking compromise on a very sensitive issue that heretofore had been a source of considerable disagreement between Russia and the United States.
In a move that we have rarely seen from this administration, the U.S. has agreed to scale back and reconsider the level of investment in its proposed missile shield that would place missiles in Poland and high tech radar installations in the Czech Republic in exchange for Iran abandoning its "peaceful" nuclear plans. The Bush administration believes that such a move puts the pressure on Russia to persuade their pseudo-allies in Iran to halt their uranium enrichment. This move appears to be a further manifestation of the New Bush Doctrine that has seen the U.S. more willing to compromise on important diplomatic missions ever since the Democrats handily won control of Congress last November.
Granted the North Korea nuclear agreement was in the works long before the election, the speed and determination with which the negotiations were completed was impressive given the complexity of the issue and the historical stubbornness of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. The same can be said of the decision to offer a compromise over the ballistic missile shield. The U.S. and Russia have been at odds over the proposed shield ever since the U.S. declared its intentions last spring; and Russia has been unexpectedly (or maybe not) defensive about the plan, highlighted by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov's comments that Russia could counter the American missile shield by moving intermediate range missiles closer to Europe, possibly in their Kaliningrad enclave.
In a move that we have rarely seen from this administration, the U.S. has agreed to scale back and reconsider the level of investment in its proposed missile shield that would place missiles in Poland and high tech radar installations in the Czech Republic in exchange for Iran abandoning its "peaceful" nuclear plans. The Bush administration believes that such a move puts the pressure on Russia to persuade their pseudo-allies in Iran to halt their uranium enrichment. This move appears to be a further manifestation of the New Bush Doctrine that has seen the U.S. more willing to compromise on important diplomatic missions ever since the Democrats handily won control of Congress last November.
Granted the North Korea nuclear agreement was in the works long before the election, the speed and determination with which the negotiations were completed was impressive given the complexity of the issue and the historical stubbornness of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. The same can be said of the decision to offer a compromise over the ballistic missile shield. The U.S. and Russia have been at odds over the proposed shield ever since the U.S. declared its intentions last spring; and Russia has been unexpectedly (or maybe not) defensive about the plan, highlighted by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov's comments that Russia could counter the American missile shield by moving intermediate range missiles closer to Europe, possibly in their Kaliningrad enclave.
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