President-Elect Obama Invited To Renew US Dialog With Moscow

In an address to the Federal Assembly Wednesday, President Dmitri Medvedev outlined specific measures Russia would take if the US proceeds with plans to establish a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In a speech postponed from October 23, Medvedev said Russia would locate Iskander missiles and jamming equipment around Kaliningrad, on Russia's western border.

"These are forced measures," he said. "We have told our partners more than once that we want positive cooperation, we want to act together to combat common threats. But they, unfortunately, don't want to listen to us."

In the speech, Medvedev  also blamed the US for Russia's economic troubles and the war in Georgia, saying, "Tskhinvali's tragedy is, among other things, the result of the arrogant course of the US administration, which hates criticism and prefers unilateral decisions."

But it was the planned missile deployment, a possible early foreign policy test for Obama, that captured attention in the West on Wednesday, the New York Times opined. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Medvedev's threatening posture was "literally and figuratively misguided.

"The Russians know full well that our European missile defense system is not capable of defeating their enormous ballistic missile arsenal," Morrell said. "Rather, it is meant to counter Iran's growing missile threat. And we have bent over backwards to invite the Russians to partner with us to defeat this common threat."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior Bush official said, "The day the US gets a new president, it's more important for them to make sure Russians hear what the Russian president says in his State of the Federation speech. It's because it's all about them. They have to find an outside villain to offset the criticism they are starting to hear about their handling of the economy."

Given the increasingly tense state of relations between the US and the reawakened Russian bear, some speculate that the timing of the confrontationally-toned speech was not coincidental. Russian diplomats consider Obama a friendlier negotiating partner than his either President Bush or Senator John McCain, and hope to spur a new round of talks starting with a clean slate.

FMI: www.nato.mil, www.missledefenseadvocacy.org