Eastern European governments that ran political risks to support former President George W. Bush’s security policies are now concerned that his successor, Barack Obama, will backtrack on those regional commitments.
Leaders in the Czech Republic, Poland and other former communist nations face a backlash at home over their support of Bush-era initiatives, including the proposed U.S. missile- defense system and troop participation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[snip]
While it’s too early to say what the president’s overall foreign policy will be, “we can see that Obama wants better relations with Russia and that he’s skeptical about missile defense,” says Jaroslaw Walesa, a lawmaker in Poland’s ruling Citizens’ Platform party and the son of the country’s first post-communist president, Lech Walesa.
[snip]
Concern is particularly acute now because of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent muscle-flexing, including last year’s war in Georgia and this year’s natural-gas dispute with Ukraine.
Now, Fox News reports that the Russian newspaper Kommersant printed a story alleging that Obama wrote to Medvedev offering to scrap the missile defense system:
President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
The article said Obama wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell him Russia's aid in resolving the threat from Iran would make the missile shield plans unnecessary, according to an account from Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
A senior administration official told FOX News that Obama sent a letter to Medvedev but "we won't comment on the specifics."
Bet this change doesn't feel too hopeful to our friends in Poland and the Czech Republic. As his voters are beginning to learn, there is nothing which is sacred to The One, except The One himself. And he's having the time of his life.
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