Wednesday, February 16, 2022

After the Lie by His Dad’s SoS

at the end of Mr. Putin’s first year as president in December 2001, President George W. Bush infuriated the new Russian leader by pulling out of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty and directing the Pentagon to build a system to ward off the possible threat of missiles from Iran.

The U.S. withdrawal from what had been a cornerstone of superpower relations for decades has since been cited repeatedly by the Kremlin as the start of its disenchantment with the United States and Mr. Putin’s belief that Russian interests are being needlessly trampled.

American assurances that only Iran need worry, however, were undermined during the Trump administration when the president stated that U.S. missile defense systems would “detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”