Unilateral appeasement

No missile shield for Poland and Czech Republic and the Iranian missile threat is downgraded.

Unilateral appeasement, plain and simple, to countries who wish America ill will. Furthermore, an action taken without realizing any simultaneous concessions from Russia on Iran, Georgia, and other Eastern European countries. Yet another example of how Obama coddles tyrants and abandons friends.

Yes, Lenin would be impressed, as I am sure Putin is.

Glenn Reynolds: "It really is like Jimmy Carter all over again. Well, actually that’s looking like a best-case scenario these days..."

Simply appalling.

ADDENDUM:

Jennifer Rubin:

It sounds like a joke, but it’s all too real: you know American foreign policy is unraveling when France is the stern international voice of sanity on Iran and Israel...

Unfortunately, the American president is not so clear. In fact, he is doing his best to be unclear—about what America will settle for and how far we will go with the charade of negotiations. Obama imagines that this buys time, but his procrastination is designed only to delay and delay the moment at which he will be obligated to take decisive action. ("Not yet—we’re still talking!") And the Iranians happily accept the gift of time to continue developing their nuclear program, hoping to reach the point at which their nuclear program becomes a fait accompli.

Obama imagines that by shrinking from conflict and reducing America’s profile he will somehow endear himself to our adversaries. But all he is doing is ceding American leadership and signaling to our adversaries that they need not fear a robust response, even a rhetorical one, from the U.S.

ADDENDUM #2:

Rubin continues:

Just when you think the Obama administration’s foreign policy cannot get more feckless or timid, the Obama team tops itself...

One hardly knows where to begin. George W. Bush established, as even the Times concedes, "a special relationship" with Eastern Europe. After all, these are countries that emerged from the yoke of Communism and struggled to establish new market-based economies that avoided the errors of their Western socialist neighbors. And these countries again and again demonstrated their pro-American bona fides. The missile shield was intended as a check against Russian aggression and a symbol of their robust relationship with the U.S.

So much for that. Obama is in the business of kowtowing to the world’s bullies. Russia didn’t like the missile shield, so no more missile shield. Do we think we "got something" for this? I'd be shocked if we did, given the obvious willingness of the U.S. to prostrate itself before rivals.

What do our Eastern European friends have to say? They are not pleased...

The administration that promised to restore our standing in the world is on quite a roll. Open hostility toward Israel. Bullying Honduras. Reneging on promises to Eastern Europe. A strange policy indeed that dumps on our friends in the vain effort to incur the goodwill of our enemies. And if one is a "realist," not a fabulist, it should be apparent that this is a losing proposition. We will lose our friends and gain nothing. Weakness and the betrayal of our allies do not ameliorate tensions with our adversaries. We had a Cold War topped off by the Carter administration to prove that. But Obama’s never been very good at history.

Speaking of not knowing history, Obama announced this decision on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Senator Jon Kyl comments.

More.

ADDENDUM #3:

Even more.