Tuesday
Mar032009
Obama to Russia: We Drop Missile Defence, You Stop Iran's Nuclear Programme
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 9:45 
Today's New York Times reveals the flip side of the Obama Administration's "engagement" with Iran:President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday.
The letter to President Dmitri A. Medvedev was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.
The letter was delivered by Undersecretary of State William J. Burns and followed similar messages from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last year, "“I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the missile sites.” A "senior administration official" commented about the latest manoeuvre, “It’s almost saying to them, put up or shut up. It’s not that the Russians get to say, ‘We’ll try and therefore you have to suspend.’ It says the threat has to go away.”
News of the proposal accompanies the revelation, in The Los Angeles Times, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates at the Gaza Donors Conference that it was "very unlikely" American engagement will persuade Iran to give up its nuclear programme. However,"an Iranian rebuff could strengthen America's diplomatic position", as the US would have shown that it had exhausted all possible efforts at diplomacy before seeking further pressure on Tehran.
Taken together, the stories indicate that the Obama Administration is on the verge of a serious mis-step in its approach to Iran. Either out of naivete or --- more likely --- the quest for a non-military campaign against Iran, key US officials are conflating the pursuit of nuclear energy with the pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
That might work with the US public and, to an extent, with European allies who do not want to break with Washington, but it is unlikely to work with Moscow. The Russians have no desire to link their relations with the US to a change in their position on Iran, and they have plenty of other cards --- remember their manoeuvring over the US supply line to Afghanistan? --- to play if the Americans are seeking "linkage".
Would you like a clue? Russian spokesman said on Monday that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will discuss missile defence with Clinton on Friday in Geneva, before Obama and Medvedev meet on 2 April in London. However, the Russian spokesman said nothing about Iran.
Reader Comments (4)
Wait, no...YOU're the one who's conflating things with Iran.
The missile program and the nuclear program are 100% disconnected. It's not as if they're made of Legos and once you have a missile you just stick a nuke on top of it. Pakistan has yet to master nuclear warheads, and they've had their program for quite a while longer, if that tells you something about the expense and complexity of these programs. They've had theirs for over a decade and still haven't figured out how to make it explode without dropping it out the backside of an airplane. Even if Iran conducts a nuclear test tomorrow, they're YEARS away from mastering long-range delivery.
With that out of the way, let's drill down even further as to what exactly we mean by "long range missiles." As you know, there's lots of different kinds of missiles, but the ones the Americans are upset over are the Surface-To-Air variety. Specifically the old Soviet "Grumble" anti-aircraft variety (also called Gargoyles, I THINK.) Grumbles can track multiple targets at very low altitudes, like a cruise missile, or at extremely high altitudes, like a returning ICBM. So what does America care if Iran has Grumbles? Simple.
Hizb'allah.
We probably couldn't imagine the havoc that Israel would reap upon Lebanon if they even caught a HINT of a Grumble missile falling into the hands of Nasrallah and Hizb'allah. It'd be doomsday for Beirut. Think of the chaos Hizb'allah could cause with one battery...they could shut down Israel's airspace for days, and the reaction by Israel to Hizb'allah using Grumble tracking capabilities against 10 civilian airliners simultaneously would be...sick, to say the least.
This is why the US is being so forceful with Russia. Russia doesn't have to suffer the consequences of Israel going batshit and nuking the Bekah Valley, but the United States will.
If you want an illustration as to exactly how serious a threat these surface to air missiles are to the Israelis, take a look at this again http://tinyurl.com/ckz93u
It's not about Nukes, it's about Missiles. It's not about Iran, it's about Lebanon. And it's not about Russia, it's about Israel.
UJ,
Excellent point which cuts across my pondering (for future post) as to the connection between an apparent shift in the US public line on Iran and its reiteration of a Palestinian Authority-first policy on Gaza, isolating Hamas.
I don't think I've considered this primarily as an issue of an Iranian missile (v. Iranian nuke weapons capability) because it hasn't been the focus of US public utterances and indeed most of their intelligence efforts --- see the 2007 NIE. I'm still convinced: my own hypothesis is that both the missile and the nuke issues are "pawns" over the question of political dominance in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, but definitely something to work over while spending a lovely evening in Bath.
S.
Ahhh, I see. So, you're saying they're not so much "connected" issues as they are "companion" issues. That also makes sense if you factor in the finagling at the UN between the US and Russia (and the Chinese) over the Iranian sanctions regimes.
By the way, do you have a preferred name for this "question of political dominance?" I'm sort of partial to the "Long War"...
The Long Pax Americana?