Have Russia and Iran Checkmated Obama?

President Obama’s decision to abandon the plan to deploy a missile defense system in Europe shocked many analysts in the United States as well as our eastern European allies who were counting on the shield to protect them from the threat of Russian missiles. Perhaps the only one who was not surprised was the political chess grandmaster Vladimir Putin.

I did not understand the game that Putin was playing until a chance meeting two years ago with an Israeli who had just returned from a meeting at the Kremlin. At the time, the United States and its European allies were pushing for stronger sanctions against Iran at the United Nations and the Russians, as they had up to that point, refused to go along and threatened to veto any Security Council resolution that would have any teeth. The Russians were also in the process of completing construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, which further undermined the campaign to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

My Israeli interlocutor explained that the Russians were the world’s best chess players and the Putin was already looking several moves ahead. He was only interested in using Iran as a pawn in U.S.-Russian relations. Russian maneuvers at the UN and elsewhere to obstruct the push for sanctions, the Israeli suggested, were really a tactic designed to extract concessions from President Bush on matters that were of greater concern to his country. At or near the top of Putin’s priority list was stopping the U.S. deployment of missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Bush was never willing to make the deal, believing that the U.S. could not abandon its allies and that Russia remained a serious enough threat to warrant the deployment. Obama, however, appears to have accepted the views of Britain, France, Germany that Iran poses the most serious threat at the moment to Europe as well as the Middle East. The decision was made, not coincidentally, just before the planned meeting of the allies with Iranian officials. The administration has threatened to push for stronger sanctions if Iran does not agree to halt its nuclear program, but this threat is empty without a promise of Russian support at the UN.

Not surprisingly, Russia does not want to give the impression that support of sanctions was a quid pro quo for Obama’s decision, and the Russian foreign minister immediately said the imposition of sanctions would be a “serious mistake.” Secretary of State Clinton visited Moscow apparently hoping this was simply an effort to avoid the appearance of a deal, but her hosts reiterated their obstructionist policies, effectively checkmating Obama.

Worse, the Iranians may have already reached checkmate in their own match with Obama. News reports indicate that the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded Iran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead. U.S. intelligence officials now appear ready to admit their earlier estimates were wrong. This may also explain Obama’s decision to create a missile shield against Iranian rockets and reflect the view Secretary of State Hilary Clinton let slip in her comment about offering a defense umbrella to Middle Eastern nations that the administration accepts a nuclear Iran as unavoidable.

The truth is that the pursuit of sanctions against Iran has never made sense.

Sanctions have too many holes and the Iranians have lived with them for years without changing their policy. The attempt at coercion never took into account the Iranian perspective that they have a great nation, just as entitled to nuclear weapons as any of the current nuclear powers, and that it is worth some short-term pain for the long-term gain of becoming the hegemon in the region. Moreover, they know from the experience of India and Pakistan, that once they have the bomb, the world will accept the fact and relations will return to normal.

Iran now appears to playing for more time in stringing out talks with the Western powers. Deals on the table may still allow enough time for Iran to complete its nuclear work, conceal it further or otherwise retain the option to build a bomb.

Israel has been anxiously watching as these games have played out. They must decide on their own moves, and perhaps Obama is looking ahead to their play.

By the end of the year, if not sooner, we should know if Iran can be stopped, and then we will learn whether Obama is a foreign policy grandmaster or whether it is time for him to flip over his king.