U.S. Scraps Europe Missile Defense Saying Iran Is Not A Threat

CNN reports "the Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday. The comment followed similar statements from officials in Poland and the Czech Republic -- where key elements of the system were to be located -- but was the first confirmation from an American official. Vice President Joe Biden earlier refused to confirm to CNN that the George W. Bush-era plan was being shelved. But he did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat. 'I think we are fully capable and secure dealing with any present or future potential Iranian threat,' he told CNN's Chris Lawrence in Baghdad, where he is on a brief trip."

This news comes out on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. The Obama administration is weakening national and world security before our very eyes, emboldening both Russian hawks and the religious fanatics in Teheran. The Kyiv Post argues that this may "have unintended consequences in the former Soviet bloc. Russian diplomacy is largely a zero-sum game and relies on projecting hard power to force gains, as in last year's war with Georgia over the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia or the gas dispute with Ukraine at the start of this year. Western concepts of 'win-win' deals and Obama's drive for 21st century global partnerships are not part of its vocabulary." Nile Gardiner of the Telegraph has called that "the president has surrendered to Russian demands" with "a shameful abandonment of America’s friends in eastern and central Europe, and a slap in the face for those who actually believed a key agreement with Washington was worth the paper it was written on." Tweet