There’s a rumor floating around that Obama has planned to cancel our missile defense shields in eastern Europe. Liberals like to claim that Bush ruined America’s image overseas, but one place that he did remarkably well diplomatically was eastern Europe. And now, Barack Obama is going to throw that all away and get nothing. Smart diplomacy, indeed.

Scuttling a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland helps smooth relations between the U.S. and Russia. But at what price?

Some of America’s staunchest allies are the East Europeans — and on Thursday, they expressed dismay at what many see as a slight after decades of their support for the U.S.

Among them were some famous names, including Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and Polish ex-president. “I can see what kind of policy the Obama administration is pursuing toward this part of Europe,” he said ruefully, adding: “The way we are being approached needs to change.”

For most of the past decade, cozy relations with Washington were practically a given across the “new Europe.” George W. Bush famously courted the region after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and leaned on it for troops to fight alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barack Obama took office undecided about Bush’s plan to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and sophisticated radar in the Czech Republic — a system designed to shoot down long-range missiles that might be fired from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East. Building had not started in either country.

The Czech installation was planned for the Brdy military installation 55 miles (90 kilometers) southwest of Prague. The Polish site was to be at a former military air base near the town of Redzikowo, about 115 miles from Russia’s westernmost edge.

Obama has been reaching out to Russia, which had expressed outrage at the notion of missiles being pointed in its direction from a region that was firmly in the Soviet orbit just 20 years ago.

On Thursday, Obama announced he was shifting the plan from Eastern Europe to other locations. He and other administration officials said they have concluded that Iran’s medium- and short-range missiles pose a greater threat and require more flexible technology.

Obama’s decision got a positive reception in Russia, hailed by President Dmitry Medvedev as a “responsible move.”

… Former Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose government signed treaties with the Bush administration to build the radar system — and took a lot of heat from Czechs who feared it would make their country a terrorist target — went on Czech radio to vent his frustrations.

“The Americans are not interested in this territory as they were before,” he said. “It’s bad news for the Czech Republic.”

… Poland’s prime minister held out hope his country might play a role in the revamped U.S. defense.

“There is a chance for strengthening Europe’s security with special attention given to Poland,” Donald Tusk told reporters, adding: “I would not describe what is going on today as a defeat for Poland.”

But a prominent Czech legislator suggested the rebuff would have consequences should Washington ask for troops — or anything else.

“If the administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it,” said Jan Vidim, a lawmaker with the conservative Civic Democratic Party, which had supported the missile defense plan.

… [S]crapping missile defense comes as a huge setback to many Polish and Czech leaders, who viewed it as a way to strengthen military ties with the U.S. in a form of defense against a resurgent Russia.

Fears of Moscow run especially deep in Poland, highlighted by a key anniversary Thursday. Exactly 70 years ago — on Sept. 17, 1939 — Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union at the start of World War II.

Aleksander Szczyglo, head of Poland’s National Security Office, characterized the change as a “defeat primarily of American long-distance thinking about the situation in this part of Europe.”

“It’s quite unfair,” said Petr Boubin, 36, who owns a cafe in the Czech capital. “I think Obama is making too many concessions to Russia.”

But now Iran suddenly poses a greater threat, Obama says. It’s not what he said on the campaign trail, when he dismissed Iran as a tiny, insignificant country. When it came to the Iranian election drama, he could barely even get the courage to “vote present”. And remember this, from last year? This was when he was still campaigning, and said that Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela pose no serious threats, especially compared to the Soviet Union!

But now, suddenly, Russia’s not a serious threat and Iran is. Unfortunately for Obama, he forgot to clear his message with his vice president, who’s still echoing the same “tiny insignificant threat” mantra that Obama was bleating on the campaign trail.

The Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday.

The comment followed similar statements from officials in Poland and the Czech Republic — where key elements of the system were to be located — but was the first confirmation from an American official.

Vice President Joe Biden earlier refused to confirm to CNN that the George W. Bush-era plan was being shelved.

But he did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran — a key concern for the United States — was not a threat.

“I think we are fully capable and secure dealing with any present or future potential Iranian threat,” he told CNN’s Chris Lawrence in Baghdad, where he is on a brief trip.

“The whole purpose of this exercise we are undertaking is to diminish the prospect of the Iranians destabilizing that region in the world. I am less concerned — much less concerned — about the Iranian potential. They have no potential at this moment, they have no capacity to launch a missile at the United States of America,” he said.

Obama may be saying something different than Biden, but his actions are saying that he agrees with Biden 100%. Right, there’s no Iranian threat at all, and if there is, Russia will surely protect us, right?

Uh, wrong.

Imposing swift additional sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme would be a “serious mistake,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

“Today there is a real chance to conclude talks whose results should be an agreement restoring trust in the purely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme,” Lavrov said in televised remarks.

“Disrupting this chance by demanding swift imposition of sanctions would be a serious mistake,” he added.

Perhaps one of these days Obama and Biden will finally decide what their message on Iran is and they’ll get it straight.

For anyone who doesn’t understand the timing of the announcement, today is September 17 — the 70 year anniversary of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland. And this is the day that Obama chose to throw Poland under the bus in favor of Russia? Yes, I’m sure it’s just coincidence.

And as John Hawkins points out, Poland was only one of our staunchest allies in the Iraq invasion. While we had many countries supporting us, only three actually went in to the push with us: Britain, Australia, and Poland. And Obama insults them, today of all days. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is just sitting there laughing his ass off, leading Obama around like some dumb puppy dog begging for a treat. We’ve got a brand new Hitler and Chamberlain in that pair, don’t we?

For what it’s worth, Obama is dead wrong about Iran, too. Iran is very to being a real nuclear threat, whether Obama and Biden want to admit it or not. Yet Obama is making the United States less safe from Iran, alienating the alliances in eastern Europe that we’ve worked so hard to build, and cozying up to Russia, all in one stroke.

Is this the “smart” diplomacy all of you Obama voters really wanted?