I had the misfortune to read the recent editorial of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who also happens to be my senator, in the Wall Street Journal.
The piece, "Russia Can Be Part of the Answer on Iran," has already been criticized, including in a response by Garry Kasparov. In general, it looks at carrots that can be used to elicit the desired responses from Iran vis-a-vis their nuclear program.
What I have found most frustrating is that Schumer actually undermines policies set in place by Democrats and therefore raises questions about the foreign policy credentials of Democrats in his piece. I am not an expert in arms proliferation, but I do reside in Estonia, part of the "new Europe" and so Schumer's offer of taking the deployment of anti-missile systems in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania off the table to appease, yes, appease Russian interests in eastern Europe strikes me as particularly odious.
Schumer writes:
Two years ago, under NATO auspices, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania agreed to build an antimissile defense site to thwart the threat of a nuclear missile attack by Iran. The threat is hypothetical and remote, and the Bush administration's emphasis on pursuing the antimissile system, without Russia's cooperation, still baffles many national security experts.
It also drives Mr. Putin to apoplexy. The antimissile system strengthens the relationship between Eastern Europe and NATO, with real troops and equipment on the ground. It mocks Mr. Putin's dream of eventually restoring Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe.
Dismantling the antimissile site, economic incentives and creation of a diplomatic partnership in the region – in exchange for joining an economic boycott of Iran – is an offer Mr. Putin would find hard to refuse. It is our best hope to avoid a nuclear Iran, because a successful economic boycott would certainly force the Iranian regime to heed Western demands more than anything attempted so far.
I agree that the missile defense shield proposal is itself controversial in these countries. However, when they hear Russia's position on the deployment of the system, if anything, it makes them more likely to deal with the United States and close the deal.
The truth is that, even nearly two decades after 1989, any Russian interference in the foreign policies of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania is perceived as a violation of national sovereignty and an existential threat. That doesn't mean the Poles necessarily fear Russian tanks; instead, they fear having their foreign policy neutered by a "diplomatic partnership" between the United States and Russia that decides their future without their input.
What I find inherently gross about this language, is the premise of making deals over the heads of some countries -- who have actually been quite willing to support the US in our often misguided global agendas -- to gain some leverage in a different region. In essence, to trade some aspects of Polish sovereignty to secure, for example, Israeli sovereignty from a hypothetical Iranian threat. Because that is what is at the center of the effort to keep Iran from going nuclear isn't it? Middle East "regional stability."
We have every right to engage in the international arena to protect our ally, Israel. They exist in an extremely uncertain security environment. But why would we be willing to sell out other allies to do so? Should it really be our foreign policy to make deals on one issue in return for deals on others? Poland for Iran? The Czech Republic for Syria?
Again, it's not the missile deployment that is the issue. It is the way in which the discussion over that deployment is framed. And I do not agree with the way that Schumer here has contextualized American foreign policy in Europe.
What is most maddening is that Democrats have been among the strongest Atlanticists since 1991. It was Bill Clinton's administration that put pressure on Russia to withdraw its last troops from eastern Europe. It was the Clinton administration that, together with NATO and, especially Germany, intervened in the conflicts of Yugoslavia to bring them to some kind of settlement. That process has not been perfect, but, the fact that the Serbians re-elected a pro-European government in May is some evidence of progress since the Milosevic era.
NATO expansion, too, is often seen as a strategic blunder by a unique coalition of anti-imperialist leftists and isolationist conservatives. But NATO expansion has also been a very helpful tool in consolidating post-communist Europe and bringing it into the European Union. Rather than building up their own individual security policies and stringing together alliances, as was the case in the 1920s and 1930s, they instead opted for collective European defense, with US military spending as the anchor. And what did it matter anyway, if your next door neighbor, be it Italy or Germany or Denmark, was already in the club? It is true that it might be unsavory to send your boys and girls to Iraq and Afghanistan, but, then again, even non-aligned Sweden has its troops in Afghanistan.
And so, the idea that the US could somehow opt to share the security of "eastern Europe," whose borders are not exactly set in any stone and even less apparent since most of these countries are parties to the Schengen agreement, with Russia, not only seems counterproductive to Democratic-endorsed foreign policies, but wholly unrealistic.
You can't have a grand bargain, Senator Schumer, if you have nothing to bargain away. You can't really sell off or share half of Europe, when a person can travel from Helsinki to Lisbon without producing a passport. Also, it is morally wrong, Senator Schumer, to make deals about the security environment in "eastern Europe" without consulting the people that actually live there first.
Schumer has already been criticized from the right. They want to give him the "Neville Chamberlain Award" and the "Yalta Cup." But this way of thinking should also be dismissed by Democrats because it is not what the Democratic Party, the party of Truman and Kennedy and Clinton, has stood for.