The American Spectator : Rookie Mistake

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Rookie Mistake

By Ilan Berman on 3.18.09 @ 6:10AM

If geopolitics were poker, the Obama administration would have just gone bust.

Last month, as part of his plans to "push the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations, the new president sent a secret letter to his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. The missive reportedly contained a simple offer: America would move to scrap Bush administration-era plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe in return for the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's persistent nuclear ambitions.

Russia's response was rapid -- and far from enthusiastic. "If we are talking about some sort of trade or exchange, then I can say that the question cannot be put that way -- it's not productive," Medvedev told reporters in Moscow when news of the clandestine communiqué broke in the Western media.

The damage, however, has already been done. After all, the Bush administration's plans for a "third site" in Europe -- entailing the deployment of interceptors in Poland and an early warning radar in the Czech Republic as a compliment to anti-missile capabilities already deployed in Fort Greely, Alaska, and at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California -- were never anything but controversial.

After more than two years of intensive diplomacy, Washington and Warsaw appeared on the cusp of a firm deal last summer, until European uncertainty over the outcome of the U.S. presidential election put plans for the deployment in stasis. Even then, Poland's tentative participation had required an American commitment to upgrading the country's aging air defenses against potential threats from the east (read Russia).

Securing Prague's participation, however, was always far more problematic. The issue was largely local; when surveyed by the Czech think tank CVVM in July 2007, nearly two-thirds of all Czech citizens opposed the idea of basing a missile defense radar on their territory. Nevertheless, the government of Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek has made a valiant effort to salvage the project. Thanks in large measure to its persistence, the Czech Republic's role in U.S. missile defense plans is still on the table, with a formal decision on the issue postponed until the next session of the country's parliament convenes later this spring. Today, however, the outcome of that vote is all but decided, thanks to the Obama administration's apparent willingness to use missile defense as a bargaining chip in its relations with Russia.

As goes the Czech Republic, so will the "third site." Pentagon planners might still seek an alternate location for the system's radar elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In the past, Lithuania expressed at least tentative interest in signing on to the initiative if one of Washington's current regional missile defense partners bows out. But that was when the Bush administration was still in office, and America appeared irrevocably committed to the deployment of such a capability.

Today, the perception abroad is that the Obama administration is anything but. Which, in turn, is liable to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as potential partners around the world rethink participation in missile defense projects in anticipation of a decline in U.S. support for them. This may be just fine by the White House, which gives every indication of adopting a "test forever, deploy never" mentality when it comes to the defense of the United States and its allies against the threat of ballistic missile attack.

But the likely demise of the European leg of America's nascent missile defense architecture also puts Washington in a quandary of its own making -- reinforcing growing doubts among allies abroad that America is committed to their defense, and leaving itself precious little leverage by which to wrangle the Kremlin's good behavior on Iran.

In Vegas, showing your cards in such a fashion might be forgiven as a rookie mistake. In the unforgiving world of international politics, however, it is not likely to be.

topics:
Foreign Policy, Missile Defense

About the Author

Ilan Berman is vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (27) | Leave a comment

Robbins Mitchell| 3.18.09 @ 6:23AM

So far the Obama adminstration has been rife with 'rookie mistakes' in just about everything it has attempted....but the real 'rookie mistake' was committed last November by the purblind idiots who voted for him

JamesJ| 3.18.09 @ 7:17AM

Either Obama is incompetent, which is scary, apathetic, which is scarier, or he knows exactly what he's doing, which is the scariest

Melvin| 3.18.09 @ 7:46AM

Obama is a,"Community Organizer" people. Community Organizers create trouble they don't solve it.

Robert Rosencrans| 3.18.09 @ 8:03AM

The article neglects to mention that Obama's teleprompter may have played a great part in the misplaced strategy.

daboss| 3.18.09 @ 9:25AM

Presiprompter Obama's teleprompter told him incorrect information ... kinda funny:

HERE

stmichrick| 3.18.09 @ 10:11AM

Don't you know that this the new, 'smarter' way to conduct foreign policy? Offer to scrap a system that has been effective in maintaining peace and stability just because it was proposed and developed by the other party. Disgusting.

The modern leftist way is to reject lessons learned about the behavior of humans and nations over the decades in favor of an 'enlightened' scenario that exists only in their own minds.

We should never miss an opportunity to rub the stupidity of such a move in their public face.

HadEnough| 3.18.09 @ 10:44AM

America needs a "RESET" button for the 2008 Presidential election.

Skep41| 3.18.09 @ 11:39AM

'Rookie Mistakes' or the kind of mistakes only people who studied Geopolitics in Ivy League universities with professors like Ward Churchill or William Ayres can make? Right now we're mainly focusing on the domestic disasters that THE DEMOCRATS are generating (are Pelosi and Reid making 'rookie mistakes'?) but sooner or later one of the many trouble spots festering around the world will blow up in the faces of these One World dolts. Gibbon once said that persuasion is the tactic of the weak but that the weak are rarely persuasive. The Obamanites will never be persuasive; the New Age hogwash they learned in school makes them not only weak but ignorant.

loulou| 3.18.09 @ 12:40PM

Who runs the teleprompter? George Soros.

ruth| 3.18.09 @ 1:43PM

This was a game of strip-poker, and Obama lost. The emperor has no clothes.

danny| 3.18.09 @ 1:58PM

far as i can tell he never had any to lose!!!

stmichrick| 3.18.09 @ 2:05PM

But he danced so well on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

MT| 3.18.09 @ 2:10PM

Was Hillary in on that game of strip poker? I don't want to go there. Shudder.

danny| 3.18.09 @ 2:19PM

i'm with you mt. think i'll stay away from there too.

CH| 3.18.09 @ 2:24PM

I almost feel sorry for the Russians who were there. Almost.

Tom Bruner| 3.18.09 @ 2:38PM

President Obama is demonstrating the right way to be a seagull manager. That is, fly in from nowhere, c*** all over the place, and leave. We're on part 2. Can't wait for part 3.

Brian Barker| 3.18.09 @ 2:51PM

Did you know that George Soros would not be a multi-billionaire if it were not for the international language Esperanto?

Born in Hungary in 1930 as Gyorgy Schwartz, the family changed its name in 1936 to Soros, which in Esperanto means "to soar."

The Soros name-change was an effort to protect the Jewish family from the rise of fascist rulers and the whole family spoke Esperanto at home.

As a native Esperanto speaker, (someone who has spoken Esperanto from birth), George Soros defected to the West in 1946, while attending an Esperanto youth meeting in Vienna.

Esperanto enabled Soros both to defect, and to become the 28th most wealthy man in the World, according to the Forbes rich list.

Marc Jeric| 3.18.09 @ 3:07PM

What did you expect from Abu Hussein from Kenya, our Community Organizer-in-Chief?

DN| 3.18.09 @ 3:14PM

Screw America, and the morons who voted for Obamass. POland, Czech Republic need to reasses all dealings with that idiot country and its loser government. If that means making deals with Moscovy, Iran and North Korea so be it. Withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afganistan as first step; withdraw from sanction regime against Iran; perhaps buy their own nukes from the Pakistani dealer. Look after your own, forget f#@#t America.

Big J| 3.18.09 @ 3:43PM

"Rookie mistake...". I almost wish it were true, but this is no mistake. Whoever is pulling Obama's (Pinochio's) strings is certainly not making "rookie mistakes". That is the scary part. Every move that you are seeing has been calculated and has a purpose. The AIG debacle is just a distraction. Big, evil car manufacturers "making cars that people don't want", just a distraction. Spend a few hundred billion here, a few hundred billion there: move along, nothing to see here....

Our foreign policy (with Secretary Clinton at the helm??) has become a joke, along with our free-market principals (not mine, government's). The bill of rights is next. Anyone with their eyes open can see what's going on.

Maybe someday we too can offer "protection" money to Russia like all of the former USSR nations do. Lord knows at this rate, we won't be able to protect ourself.

Big J| 3.18.09 @ 3:48PM

Sorry, I had to cool off a bit before responding to "DN".

You ought to be ashamed of yourself for speaking in the manner that you have. Hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform have died for your right to speak your mind freely (without even knowing who you are). You might consider that the next time you care to utter or write the first sentance in your post. If that is truly your view, there are plenty of other countries that I am sure would love to have your citizenship. This certainly isn't one of them.

Think First| 3.18.09 @ 5:15PM

I think article misses the whole point and ignores the evidence right in front of all of us. Sure Obama is in no way equipped to run this country. That much is obvious. That these are rookie mistakes is not true. More than a few folks have worked with, been to and participated in meetings with him to report only too well just how incredibly arrogant he is when the cameras are off.

The "blunder" as it has been termed with Britain is no such thing. When he sent Churchill's bust back to the British Consulate he was sending a clear message and he knew it. Everything that happened after that was driving the point home. He believes in his agenda and one of the prime principles is too create an emergency far reaching enough he will have to seize control to "solve it."

Once he is installed as the "temporary dictator" in charge, every rule, law and effort to remove him will be stamped out by his "civilian forces." I have no idea why no one seems to recognize this but it is clear that if they can't do it by legal means, they have the will to do it by any means necessary.

With a willing propaganda arm in the press, a willing generation of children propagandized from kindergarten on full of radical ideals firmly entrenched, and a cadre of elites willing to bend the knee to his superiority, how far off do you think this really is?

As much as the backlash is rising, until we are hit again I am afraid his agenda will continue. Will it be a suitcase nuke from Iran this time, not only destroying a large part of a city but rendering it incapable of being lived in be what it takes to finally wake people up?

Is it for naught that people who lived through Hitler and Stalin claim his rise and tactics mirror almost exactly those used to gain them their power? Mistakes, no. Planned, yes.

Doc| 3.18.09 @ 5:37PM

Think First has it exactly right. Gather together, Brothers and Sisters, these are just the opening salvoes of a struggle that will last a generation or more.

ben| 3.18.09 @ 5:46PM

obama wants the destruction of america so that he can rebuild it how he sees fit. this is the agenda of the church he attended for 20 years, his supporters - ayers, al mansour, klotsky, his parents, his grandparents, his mentor frank davis, the new party of which he was a member etc. they don't like america and the principals it was founded under. in america you can succeed if you work for it or you can fail. this is life, sink or swim, sometimes you succeed, many times you fail. the libs want to outlaw failure by the forced sharing of successes and failures. those that work towards success will have to take some of the other's failure, and those who choose failure can enjoy another's success. this will never work because there are always many more failures than successes. there aren't enough successes to spread around, thus we all become moderate failures. they think that they can make it so everyone wins, but if there is no loser, how can there be a winner.

Angel| 3.18.09 @ 7:45PM

Obama's a rookie and is obviously not ready for the Majors. Can we send him back down to the Minors? Please?

Thomas| 3.18.09 @ 10:00PM

Is anyone here surprised? Home Depot Joe isn't. Let's take a look at the Obama foreign policy successes.

Iran steps up nuclear fuel development.
North Korea plans to launch a missile into the Sea of Japan and threatens war if anyone objects.
China continues to increase its land, air and naval forces and continues to develop and test space weapons.
Russia sells advanced weapon systems and nuclear hardware to Iran, who is still techmically at war with he U.S.
And now Russia wishes to base long range bombers in Cuba and Venezuela. [Deja Vu, anyone]
And to top it all off, suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks are on the rise in Iraq.

Can't we all just get along? Kumbya my friends, kumbya.