CNN Analyst Zakaria Backtracks on 'Fantasy' Eastern European Missile Defense Program

CNN Analyst Zakaria Backtracks on 'Fantasy' Eastern European Missile Defense Program

by Tony Lee 4 Mar 2014, 11:15 AM PDT

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/03/04/CNN-Analyst-Zakaria-Backtracks-on-Fantasy-Eastern-European-Missile-Defense-Program

Four years after CNN foreign policy analyst Fareed Zakaria praised President Barack Obama for scrapping the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, Zakaria  swiftly backtracked on Sunday after top Ukrainian officials declared that Russia was invading the country.

Zakaria, the host of CNN's weekly Fareed Zakaria GPS program, said on his show that NATO should consider building a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that the Obama administration scrapped:

Militarily there is less that can be done. After all, Russia’s military budget is about 18 times that of Ukraine. But NATO should restart talks on providing assurances to countries like Poland – including perhaps building the missile defense system that was abandoned.

During Obama's first year in office, though, Zakaria had a different tone. He said that Obama did not cave on scrapping the missile defense system in Eastern Europe because Obama "traded the fantasy of the system with the reality of what it is."

"The president's reasons for shifting gears on the antiballistic missile systems for Poland and the Czech Republic are sound," Zakaria said in 2009. "Look at the facts. Since the 1980s, the United States has spent well over $150 billion on missile defense. That's more than the total cost of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo mission to the moon. Despite this, in 25 years, the program has not produced any workable weapon system, something unprecedented even in the annals of the Pentagon's bloated budgets."

He said that Obama's proposal to scrap the missile defense system in Eastern Europe was "attuned to the actual threat and proposing a workable response. This is reality-based defense policy."

"So basically we have former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Bzrezinski's formulation, 'a scheme that doesn't work against a threat that doesn't exist,'" Zakaria wrote of the program that he felt should be scrapped.

Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria was a foreign policy analyst for CNN, is a director at the New America Foundation, the editor-at-large for Time magazine, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and an advisory council member for the Acumen Fund.

Note: Walter Isaacson was the chairman & CEO for CNN, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), and the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank).

Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the New America Foundation, the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the Brookings Institution (think tank).

George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and Andrea Soros father.

Strobe Talbott is the president of the Brookings Institution (think tank), a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), and an editor for Time magazine.

Ivo H. Daalder was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank), is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (think tank), and the U.S. permanent representative for NATO.

Andrea Soros is George Soros’s daughter, and a director at the Acumen Fund.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was a funder for the Acumen Fund, the New America Foundation, the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the Brookings Institution (think tank).