The Czech government's decision to approve the building of a U.S. ballistic missile defense radar base on its territory is an important strategic victory for the Bush administration.Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told reporters in Prague Monday that the Czech Republic and the United States would formally sign both the necessary treaties to build the strategically crucial base on Czech territory in early June.
The original plan was for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to sign the key treaty during her visit to Prague next week but Rice had to change her timetable and will now only be in the picturesque Czech capital for half a day, so the signing has been postponed till June, Topolanek said.
"We have agreed in the end that it will be ideal to sign both treaties together. If everything turned out well... both treaties would be signed in the first decade (first 10 days of June)," Topolanek said according to a report carried by the Czech news agency CTK.
The Americans and the Czechs also want to conclude work on their SOFA treaty which will regulate the conditions under which the U.S. troops operating the base will remain on Czech territory, CTK said.
The issues still to be resolved on the SOFA agreement are minor ones. CTK said agreement still has to be reached on whether Czech companies producing goods and services for the U.S. radar base will have to pay their own government Value Added Tax or not.
But the base is not a done deal yet. Topolanek's government won a new lease of life by a hairsbreadth Wednesday when it survived a no-confidence vote in the Czech parliament by only three votes. Some 101 lawmakers supported the government coalition and 98 members of parliament voted against it.
The main opposition left-of-center Social Democrats fiercely oppose the base and Russia is using all its massive diplomatic and economic influence in the Czech Republic to oppose the base deal. Former Prime Minister and still Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek is spearheading the political opposition to the agreement and opinion polls show around 70 percent of Czechs agreeing with him on the issue.
The Social Democrats and their allies, the Czech Communist Party -- KSCM -- want to hold a referendum on the issue.
The proposed base would be constructed in the Brdy military district, 54 miles southwest of Prague to serve as the directing guiding system to allow 10 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors deployed in neighboring Poland to intercept and destroy any intercontinental ballistic missiles that Iran or other so-called rogue states may in the future fire at the United States or Western Europe.
Topolanek's ruling ODS party continues to strongly back the base plan, but their Green coalition partners, the SZ don't want it, and even the Christian Democrats -- KDU-CSL -- the third party in the ruling coalition, are wobbly on the issue, CTK said.
Topolanek's announcement was the second major victory U.S. President George W. Bush has won on the Euro-BMD base issue within the past month. At the beginning of April, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Bucharest, Romania backed the policy too. Bush there won approval for the project from major Western European leaders, especially Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain.
Bush on a BMD roll
U.S. presidents are supposed to become lame ducks in their last year of office, especially if their policies and party have been repudiated at the previous midterm elections. Yet President Bush, after defying so many other conventional wisdoms for good and ill during the past seven years, is now confounding that one, too.
In April, he racked up not one but four major foreign policy triumphs in his drive to deploy an effective U.S. anti-ballistic missile interceptor bases in Central Europe to guard against a future threat from Iran.
First, as we have previously noted in these columns, Bush won big at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, at the beginning of April over his plan to build ABM defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Second, Silvio Berlusconi won an unanticipated landslide victory to return as prime minister of Italy for the third time. The 71-year-old Berlusconi previously served a full five years as prime minister from 2001 to 2006. Unlike his left-of-center opponents, he is a strong advocate of BMD in general and can be expected to provide energetic support for Bush in his plans to build a base for 10 ground-based mid-course interceptors in Poland and an accompanying radar base to guide them in the neighboring Czech Republic.
Also, Berlusconi's victory means that the four largest countries, economies and most powerful nations in the 27-nation European Union are now all led by strongly pro-American leaders who firmly back missile defense.
Berlusconi now joins Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in this powerful pro-BMD constellation. Only recently re-elected Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain stands outside it, and given Spain's historic close associations with France and Italy, Berlusconi's victory completes Zapatero's diplomatic isolation on European security issues in NATO and the EU.
Third, on Wednesday, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek won a no-confidence motion in the Czech parliament by the skin of his teeth -- 101 votes in favor of the government to 98 against.
And fourth, on Monday, Topolanek said he would soon sign an agreement with the United States to build the BMD radar base.
Topolanek's ruling Civic Democratic Party remains strongly supportive of building the radar base. But his partner Greens fiercely oppose it and even the Christian Democrats -- the third partner in the governing coalition -- have been increasingly wobbly. Opinion polls show up to 70 percent of Czechs opposing building the base, and Russia has been using all its formidable economic clout and diplomatic influence in Prague to try and block the agreement -- so far unsuccessfully.
Bush's success in enlisting the support of Brown, Sarkozy, Merkel and now Berlusconi is of crucial importance in giving his ally Topolanek the diplomatic support he urgently needs to maintain his power in Prague. And as we noted in these columns after the Bucharest NATO summit, it is also crucial in keeping the wavering Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in line to build the Polish ABM interceptor base.
Russian policymakers appear to have been taken by surprise by Bush's ongoing success on the Euro-BMD issue. But time is on the U.S. president's side: Whether it means propping up loyal but beleaguered allies like Topolanek in Prague or reining in potential waverers like Tusk in Warsaw, or even just keeping opposition Democrats on board to approve funding in the U.S. Congress, the more progress Bush makes on the Euro-BMD issue during his remaining months in office, the more he will be creating a momentum that his successor in the White House may go along with.
It is one thing to refuse funding for a supposedly hypothetical plan, but it is another thing entirely to pull the plug on a major strategic program to defend American cities that is being already being constructed.
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