Show Russia more respect

Iran won't be a threat to Europe for a long time, so there's no need for antimissile defense on Russia's doorstep.

By Patrick Lang

from the June 11, 2007 edition

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Alexandria, Va. - There is no Iranian missile or nuclear threat to Europe. There is no possibility of such a threat for a decade. The problems of missile development, nuclear warhead development, miniaturization of warheads, engineering those warheads to "fit" a given missile, testing, and industrialization of this whole process all ensure that any Iranian nuclear missile threat to Europe will be nothing more than material for plots for cheap novels for a long time.

The CIA and other parts of the government have been trying to tell the world that. Why hasn't the Bush administration been listening? President Putin knows there is no such threat. Russia lost the cold war but still possesses a vast army of scientists and engineers who have told him that.

That being the case, the Russians asked themselves what the true purpose of the proposed antimissile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic might be. They have decided that the missile defenses are intended to consolidate American "control" of Eastern Europe and to demonstrate the supremacy of American power.

Mr. Putin as much as said so recently. In a number of forums, he complained that although Russia understands that it is no longer a superpower, it is not willing to be reduced to a subordinate that must bow to whatever is dictated by Washington. He said that Russia accepts American primacy in the world, but that this primacy requires prudent restraint and caution. He said that we Americans are in danger of becoming "bad actors" in the same way that leaders in his country have been in the past. He made reference to the internal system of constitutional checks and balances in the United States. He said there must be some balancing force in the world, and that Russia would play that role.

Such a statement should be taken seriously. Russia remains a formidable nuclear power, and now it is also a country swimming in oil money. The nation's capacity for mischief in the world is growing, not diminishing.

Poland and the Czech Republic were client states of the former USSR for many years. Now they are members of NATO, the alliance that the Russians believe threatened them for 50 years. Putin "grew up" as a KGB officer whose life was devoted to protecting the Soviet Union against that same NATO alliance. What are he and the Russian people to think of the placement on their doorstep of an antimissile-defense system against a threat from Iran that does not exist?

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