Obama Scraps Bush-Era Missile Shield

The United States has decided to overhaul the project concerning the installation of a missile shield in Central Europe, after having downgraded the level of the Iranian threat, concurring sources told AFP, after the officials of the projected missile shield host countries, Poland and the Czech Republic, had regretfully announced Washington"s imminent decision.

The information had been previously published in The Wall Street Journal. The White House was planning to make the official announcement of the final decision last evening, but U.S. officials were already speaking yesterday of a major adjustment and improvement of the European missile shield system, which was initially planned to consist of a long-range radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, to be deployed by 2013.

Also yesterday, Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said that U.S. President Barack Obama had called to inform him that Washington had reconsidered the project. "The Czech Republic notes the decision of the President of the USA," Fischer added. A U.S. delegation discussed the matter of the missile shield with Polish officials in Warsaw on Thursday afternoon, but all participants declined comment.

The Pentagon denied speculations that they had finally given in to long-lasting pressures created by Moscow, which had been very energetic in opposing President Bush"s initiative to build a missile shield in Europe. "This has nothing to do with Russia," Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell said. "This is not good news for the Czech state, for Czech freedom and independence," said former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose centre-rightist Government had signed the agreement with Washington to have the radar station deployed in his country.

Other voices speak of an overhaul of the U.S. strategy after the Obama - Medvedev meeting last summer.

• Iulian Fota: This decision does not affect Romania

Presidential Advisor for Defence and Security Iulian Fota told BURSA that the recent White House decision regarding the missile shield in Europe was a new approach in the U.S. foreign policy in the spirit of the traditional idealist school of the Democratic Party, which focused on cooperation, rather than confrontation. "The Obama Administration seeks to dissociate from the policy of the Bush Administration, hoping to attract Russia into strategic cooperation with the United States through compromises on matters which Russia regards as extremely important," Fota added.

"This is the American understanding of the "reset button," a reset of the American - Russian relations through a new beginning. We will see how Russia responds to it and what the "reset button" will mean in the Russian version," he added.

In Fota"s opinion, this decision cannot be interpreted as a lack of U.S. commitment to Central Europe. One argument to support this theory would be President Obama"s recent visit to the Czech Republic. To conclude, Presidential Advisor Iulian Fota stressed that the recent decision to discontinue the missile shield project did not affect and had nothing to do with the U.S. military bases in Romania and Bulgaria, which were not deployed as part of an anti-Russian logic.