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.
The U.S. seemed confused by the hawkish Russian tone because the missile shield is not seen as an offensive system nor is it in any way intended for use against Russian missiles, but old Cold War tensions and oil-fueled assertiveness seem to have gotten the better of common sense. In the days of the old Bush Doctrine, the U.S. no doubt would have pushed the plan forward regardless of Russian concerns. Now, despite lingering threats from the trite and discredited Vice President Cheney, the U.S. seems to have come to its senses and is now using the missile shield issue as a bargaining chip. This is a sign of a truly new day in American diplomacy under Bush, although it is sad to see that we are finally compromising only because our military has been stretched to the breaking point and we no longer have the capability of credibility to make effective threats to small time rabble rousers such as Ahmadinejad.
This begs the question: Was the proposed missile shield ever intended to be anything more than a bargaining chip? While I would like to think the Bush administration is this cunning, something tells me that they really did like the idea of a European-based missile shield that could simultaneously annoy both Russia and Iran. The whole plan smacks so much of neoconservative thinking that there is simply no way the Bush administration was trying to be that clever. Plus, that is an oxymoron anyway. So what of the fate of the potential compromise?
Russia has already said that there is "nothing novel" about the U.S. compromise and I would be amazed if the Russians do anything but scoff at the plan. Putin has no reason to back down from his stance on either the missile shield or Iran. He is insanely popular at home and knows that Bush has no political legs to stand on. Perhaps the U.S. could offer further incentive by convincing our EU allies to open up to further investment from Gazprom, but this too is unlikely given the current weakness of some European leaders, especially Sarkozy in France. So for now the New Bush Doctrine seems to sum up this administration perfectly-too little, too late.
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