Alternative title: “Barack Obama begs Russia for more time to arrange capitulation on missile defense.” There’s an election coming up, you see – and if the President gets re-elected then he will be in a position where he won’t have to worry about those pesky voters, and their provincial dislike for having nuclear weapons pointed at their heads. Hence, the need for more time:

President Obama assured Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday that he’d have “more flexibility” after the November election, during a conversation that appeared to focus on the touchy issue of missile defense.

Flexibility.

Flexibility.

Ye gods and little fishes.

There is no flexibility, here. The missile defense system was proposed for a reason, and the reason is that nobody particularly trusts the Russian ‘Republic’ – which is actually a kingdom whose ruler remembers fondly the days where it was the center of an empire and one of the two poles of the world. More to the point, that kingdom still has the nuclear weapons that made it one of those poles*. Nukes + an aggressive foreign policy designed to stoke domestic pride + systematic domestic problems = worrisome neighbors. Which is why countries like Poland were happy to host the missile defense platforms: after all, they’re well aware that Russians have difficulty admitting that the concept of “Poland” should exist in the first place.

I should not have to explain any of this to an American President. Then again, as we all know killing missile defense has long been on the progressive Left’s wish list for some time. Certainly Barack Obama knows:

That’s from 2008, and Barack Obama’s apparently decided to see if he can keep his views quiet just long enough to get reelected in 2012. Great news if you’re an antiwar progressive; not so great if you happen to have relatives in Warsaw, Riga, Kiev, and/or Budapest. Or just don’t want to see Eastern Europe under outside imperial control again…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Let me make this clear. Missile defense is a shield, not a sword. That an effective missile shield will marginalize Russia on the European stage should not be the problem of the United States of America. It should instead be an impetus for the Russians to become better neighbors. And, hey, possibly a functioning representative democracy, too? – Crazy notion, but God knows they’ve gone through all possible variations of autocracy by now; the Russians might as well try something radical.

*Well, it’s not like the Soviet Union was ever a world power because of its economic policy. Or technological prowess. Or grasp of basic agricultural principles.