I wrote yesterday of the Obama administration's apparent sell-out of Eastern Europe to the Russians when he offered to not deploy a missile defense for Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for Russia's help in preventing Iran from building nukes.

Not surprisingly, the Russians turned him down cold:

Russian President Medvedev has said he's willing to discuss the proposed US missile shield with Washington. But he added that any deal linking those talks with negotiations regarding Iran would not be productive.

Russian President Dimitry Medvedev's comments came in response to a New York Times report that US President Barack Obama had written a secret letter to his Russian counterpart offering to halt the planned missile shield, which would be located mainly in Poland and the Czech Republic, in return for Moscow's help in stopping Iran from developing long-range nuclear weapons.

 

The Russian president welcomed the "positive signals" coming from the Obama administration with which he said he hoped to reach "agreements." "Haggling," however, was "not productive," added Medvedev on Tuesday, March 3.

 

The Russian president also said Obama's letter had not presented the issue in such a way.

 

Obama on Tuesday said the Times report did not "accurately characterize the letter" he sent Medvedev.

 

"What I said in the letter was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran's commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for -- or the need for a missile-defense system," he said.

Maybe someone would like to explain the difference between removing the missile shield in a quid pro quo over Iran with Obama's statement above. That's pretty obtuse - even for a president.

Along with the inexplicable and embarrassing pullout of Durban II - after promising that participating in the planning for the conference would allow Washington to mitigate the more anti-Israeli and anti-American aspecets of the agenda - the naivete of the Administration is exactly what we all expected. Liberals are so enamored of their own goodness that they believe it will rub off on the truly bad nations of the world. The fact that they are shocked when they discover they are wrong is pathetic.