Obama Kills Plan to Stage Missiles on Russia's Doorstep

And it's about bloody time, too. Barack Obama has rescinded the Bush administration's mad plan to position anti-missile batteries in Poland and the Czech Republic ostensibly to defend against rogue missile launches from Iran.

Everyone, and I mean every one, knew that gambit had nothing to do with Iran. Instead it was an integral part of Bush's plan to march NATO right to Russia's borders with a view to shoehorning Moscow out of Central Asia altogether. The prize is the Caspian Basin or, more directly, the massive fossil fuel reserves found there.

What Bush/Cheney never admitted was that Iran has no missiles that could get anywhere near Poland or the Czech Republic. It might have made sense to locate the American batteries closer to Iran, say perhaps in Turkey.

So now Obama has the Poles and the Czechs steamed. They were going to be handsomely rewarded for allowing the anti-missile batteries on their territory and, like the rest of the world, they knew the American weaponry was meant for Russia, not Iran.

NATO's Doom Foretold Yet Again

Every time the United States doesn't get its way with NATO some American leaps to his feet and warns that NATO is just a breath away from breaking up.

The latest boy to cry "wolf" is Lt. Gen. Henry Obering. He warned that European failure to adopt Washington's missile defence system could spell the end of NATO. From The Guardian:

"...Obering, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, painted almost apocalyptic scenarios at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London today. He said that Iran could simultaneously block the Straits of Hormuz and provoke terrorist attacks in Europe, and that al-Qaida could acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran would be able to launch ballistic missiles which could hit most capitals of Europe in "the next two or three years", he said.

He described a hypothesis in which in 2015 Iran announces it has long-range missiles with a nuclear capability and Europe does not have a missile defence system. Iran blocks the Straits of Homuz and provokes terrorist attacks in Europe. There are riots in Europe and only Athens and Rome are protected from Iranian missile attack.

"We would start to see fractures in the alliance," he said. In another 2015 scenario, he said al-Qaida would capture ships and nuclear-armed missiles.

If a missile defence system was in place, he argued, "we can defeat the missiles and dissuade Iran", while European leaders would be able to "bide time" before they made crucial decisions."