When a Shield Isn't a Shield Then is a Shield

Europeans now want to work with the U.S. to develop an anti-missile shield against Iran. Supposedly this effort has "full" U.S. support, whatever that means these days. This is an interesting position since I suspect that many key NATO countries probably sold Iran the components to make the North Korean imports work with some degree of reliability. Leaving that aside, though, it is a reversal of position both by the Europeans and the United States.

I posted on September 17, 2009 that the Obama Administration was killing a new land-based anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic after those countries had gone out on a limb for us with the Russians, who were vigorously protesting the system because they also wanted to intimidate Europe with impunity. I quoted Joe Biden as saying at the time that the system was pulled because the "Iranians do not pose a threat." No opposition from NATO was noted. Two conclusions can be drawn.

First, all of these guys either have no understanding of who Iran is and what it is up to or they have lied through their teeth to the people they are supposed to protect. Neither conclusion  is very comforting.

Secondly, cowardice (my own conclusion as to what happened is obvious) has consequences. The easy way out a year ago was to say stupid things like Biden did or talk the talk and simultaneously sell Iran high tech equipment like the Europeans did. The chickens are now coming home to roost. I think that we can reasonably conclude that all Western countries have now assessed that Ahmadinajad and the other nut burgers running Iran have an operational atomic bomb and a way to deliver it, so maybe we should do something about it now that it is a fait accompli. Good luck.

I stand by my prediction of two years ago that somebody, somewhere in the world is going to get nuked in the next 5 years. Apparently the Europeans are now earnestly hoping it's not them. 


www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7996581/West-needs-new-missile-shield-against-Iranian-nuclear-threat-Nato-chief-says.html