Obama ally Colin Powell asserts that the United States' national interest trumps Russia's demands:
Russia's foreign minister said that progress would be jeopardized if the U.S. decides to create a global missile defense system. But Powell says Russia "can't have veto power over what we think is needed."
That's certainly a far cry from what Powell said about Russian objections to our missile defense when we were preparing to withdraw from the ABM Treaty in 2001:
Powell is sympathetic to [the Russians'] anxieties.
“The one thing that scares them and I’d be scared if I were them, and we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this: ‘Powell, we love you like a brother. We don’t care what the magazines in Washington say, we think you’re great. But you’ll be gone one day. Putin will be gone. Bush will be gone. Igor will be gone. And we will have made some kind of a deal now, and, great, it’s a limited defense. Well, one day another president comes in, and he decides: “I’ll replicate it. I’ll clone it. I’ll geneticize it.” And it goes from being a limited defense to: POW! Reagan’s back. How do you persuade us that’s not going to happen? We can’t do this on the basis of personal relations. It has to be on the basis of our national interest over time.”’ Which means, Powell said, “You codify it somehow.”
“A good argument you get on the other side, probably from Condi, is: ‘Let’s just do what we think is right. We really don’t have to be bound up in the legal documents like we used to be with the Soviet Union.’ We will see.”
Powell paused and pursed his lips in a grim smile.
Referring to the Russians, he said: “You could just say, ‘The heck with you.’ I would rather not.”
Now it seems he rather would. What changed? Ohhhhhh.
Comments