US Decides To Withdraw Anti-Missile Plan

The US foreign policy led by President Barack Obama has gone through a spate of reversal. First, the US President announced the US intention to hold direct talks with North Korea. This is followed by urging France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Russia to work together and engage in talks with Iran, a country deemed by the United States as "axis of evil".

Obama's Annoucement
Now, President Obama has again announced that the United States will withdraw former US President Bush's proposal to establish the anti-Iran missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. However, President Obama's latest announcement on the withdrawal of the US missile defense system in Eastern Europe has immediately received a hostile reaction from the Republicans, including criticism of Senator McCain who was defeated by Obama during the presidential elections. These Republicans pointed directly to the fact that President Obama has betrayed US allies in order to please Russia.

As a result, the White House has also come up with an explanation quickly to explain that as a matter of fact, President Obama did not "abolish" this missile defense program, but instead it is President Obama's goal to replace this missile defense plan entirely with a new one.

Although the Obama government did not explain the type of new missile defense system it will use to replace the present missile defense system as proposed by former US President Bush, the US Government does say that it will replace it with a new system that has hundreds of missiles, mobile radar units, including the deployment of the radar in space, to protect the US troops and also the US allies in Europe. It added that ultimately, this new missile defense system to be deployed in Europe will also strengthen the US internal home security.

Iranian Nuclear Issue
President Obama also explained that he made this decision after accepting a congressional panel's discussion on the issue. President Obama said that according to the latest intelligence analysis, Iran's short range and medium-range missiles were most threatening. Obama's explanation is obviously saying that in the near future, Iran will not be able to obtain long-range missiles.

Although the Obama government did make clear that President Obama's decision to cancel the missile defense plan in East Europe has "nothing to do" with Russia, but it is an undisputable fact that to deter Teheran from moving toward its nuclear weapon research development, the United States must gain Russia's cooperation and support. Earlier, the United States has already hinted the possibility that the United States might abolish the US missile defense deployment in order to exchange from Moscow its promise for not selling Russia's advance missiles to Iran.

US-Russia Cooperation
In response, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev immediately welcomed President Obama's announcement. The decision by President Obama to withdraw its anti missile defense system in Europe can undeniably "warm up" the cool ties between Russia and the United States and can have some rebound effect on US-Russian bilateral ties.

However, whether the decision made by President Obama over the US antimissile plan in Europe can have a long-term and positive impact on the bilateral ties between Russia and the United States or not will still have to depend on how President Obama is going to handle NATO's eastward expansion issue. This is because all along, Russia has been worrying about that the influence of the United States and NATO's eastward expansion plan will spread to the Russian borders.

Disappointment for European Allies
As far as the European leaders are concerned, who have all along supported the US policy, President Obama's announcement to withdraw its anti missile defense plan is a "disappointment" or even an "embarrassment." To Poland and the Czech Republic, the two countries that can sense the direct impact as a consequent of President Obama's decision to withdraw its missile defense plan there, they are more concerned that others that the United States will eventually "reduce" the security commitments to them. All along, these two nations maintain that the US antimissile defense deployment in their countries is an indirect warning to Russia not to have any bad idea toward them.

The other former Eastern European countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, of course, have reason to worry too. They might wonder if it is because the United States wants to focus its attention to tackle the problems in North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan that the United States has now ignored the US security commitments toward them.