Scowcroft Agrees With Obama on Missile Defense Shift

[sabra]

Source: WP

President Obama's decision to shift direction on missile defense in Europe has produced howls from many Republicans, but one prominent GOP foreign-policy heavyweight weighed in Friday with support for the president's plan.

"I strongly approve of President Obama's decision regarding missile defense deployments in Europe. I believe it advances U.S. national security interests, supports our allies, and better meets the threats we face," Brent Scowcroft said in a statement issued through the Atlantic Council, a policy group.

Scowcroft was national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Bush's son, George W. Bush, pushed as president for the missile defense plan abandoned by Obama.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, also a Republican, was Scowcroft's deputy during the first Bush administration.

Read more: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/18/scowcroft_agrees_with_obama_on.html?wprss=44

[The Magistrate]

1. This Is So Obvious, Sir, It Should Not Need Stating

Supply through the Khyber Pass is tenuous, and may in future be severed. In that case, U.S. forces could be maintained in Afghanistan only through territory of Russia, and territory where Russian influence is predominant. Hence some practical concessions towards 'friendship' occur....

[nyy1998]

2. Huh? What does Khyber Pass has to do with European Missle Defense?

[The Magistrate]

3. As You May Have Noted, Sir

Russia does not much like the establishment of this 'shield' on territory formerly belonging to the Warsaw Pact, and even in Czarist times, in the cas of Poland, considered part of Russia itself. A favor in the west for a favor in the east....

[damonm]

4. Well, from a Yankee fan I would expect such a question...

Psych!:P

Anyway, The Magistrate's point is that easing relations with Russia in the form of this action helps us by ensuring supply routes for our troops in Afghanistan.
That aside, the Christian Science Monitor has praise for it for a different reason:

The Obama administration's new anti-Iran missile plan is not so much a "reversal" of the Bush plan, as a refinement of it.

And a well-timed one for the coming round of diplomacy with Iran.

On Oct. 1, the US will join China, Russia, France, Britain, and Germany for talks with Iran, presumably on its nuclear weapons program. The world has been at a stalemate in forcing Iran to comply with international nuclear nonproliferation standards. Neither sanctions nor a new US openness to deal with Tehran has yet to yield results.

But today's announcement that the US will soon have a missile defense system ready to intercept possible Iranian short- and medium-range nuclear missiles should significantly add to the pressure on Iran. Perhaps, too, Russia may reverse itself and agree to tougher sanctions if Iran still doesn't comply.

read the whole thing at http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090917/cm_csm/emissiledefense