Background for Obama's Prague Visit

[Aloha Spirit]

It's pretty fascinating, what's going on in Eastern Europe with regard to Obama's visit.
According to one poll, 72% of Czechs oppose the proposed US military base, in favor of more cooperation with Europe on defense.
But if the military base plan weren't on the table, Obama would have less leverage with the Russians.
So in one way, Bush gave Obama room to negotiate with Russia over two things that Obama cares deeply about: reducing nuclear weapons and using diplomacy on Iran.

Now, the current Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (well, he resigned last week, but hey. Out in flames. I can respect that.) Topolanek dubbed Obama's economic recovery strategy "A way to hell", and the current President Klaus is a strong opponent of government intervention in the economy. Klaus gets to appoint the next Prime Minister. There was no reason to expect Obama's visit to be easy. But Topolanek was ousted last week by a Parliamentary vote led by Paroubek, who used to be the Prime Minister, and is probably the most aligned with Obama's positions. Especially when it comes to the proposed missile radar base.

And that's where it gets fun. Because while Topolanek and Klaus vocally opposed Obama's economic plans, they also want the missile defense radar base. However, Obama has signalled that he's not convinced it's a good idea. So you'd think they would want to be more ..eh..diplomatic. Nope.

BUT Obama has also not signalled that he's completely opposed to the missile defense radar base, and Russia is pushing for him to scrap it.
allegedly, Obama is using this to get the Russians to help deal with Iran's missile program.

So, Obama has some leverage with both parties on opposite sides of the missile defense issue.

Now, anybody who knows Obama, has read his books, etc, probably has an idea of where he will land on this. But in the mean time, he very well could use his indecision to pull both Russia and the Czechs toward him on other issues.

It doesn't hurt that Czechs, regardless of what the NYTimes says, overwhelmingly seem to oppose the base.

If anyone here has links with more background on Czech politics and Obama, please post!
It's very interesting to me, and I'm just learning about it.

Here are two links with a bunch of articles

http://www.globalpost.com/home/czech-republic

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/dan_bilefsky/index.html?scp=1&sq=bilefsky&st=cse

[Aloha Spirit]

1. Aw, no responses. Srsly, if anybody has any more info on this, please post! Thanks

[Aloha Spirit]

2. Interesting statement from SOS Clinton on NMD and Iran, February 10th

Well, as the Vice President also said in Munich, we are first and foremost very grateful to the Czech Republic, to the government and the people, for working with us to try to deter the threat from Iran. If we are able to deter that threat, it will be, in some measure, due to the courage of the Czech people in stepping up and being a partner to provide a strong defense in Europe against Iranian aggression that would certainly be present were they to obtain nuclear weapons.
There are technical issues concerning missile defense that you – that you know well. We had a very good discussion about our hopes to work together – the European Union and the United States – in dissuading the Iranians from pursuing nuclear weapons. But if the Iranians continue on this path, certainly one of the options for free countries like the Czech Republic, other Europeans, and the United States, is to defend ourselves. So this is one of those issues that really will rest with the decisions made by the Iranian Government.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/116470.htm

[Barack_America]

3. Obama's decision not to dine with either leader tonight also symbolizes something...

In the battle between these two leaders, Obama appears to be choosing the Czechs (he's going out to dinner at a restaurant with Michelle tonight).

That was my impression of the situation before your excellent and informative post regarding the base.

He's quite crafty, that Obama. ;)

[Aloha Spirit]

4. Thanks, he IS crafty! It seems like he's putting pressure on the politicians

by getting the people all fired up.
At the same time, maybe he just doesn't want to seem like he's interfering with negotiations at all, as the parties are supposed to come up with a deal on the new caretaker government tomorrow.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5324DQ20090403

[Aloha Spirit]

5. One last thing, the outcome of tomorrow's negotiations to form a temporary

government could impact the EU's ability to act during the economic crisis, since President Klaus will choose the next Prime Minister, and he is strongly opposed to the Lisbon Treaty.

"...the biggest political threat for the union as a whole dealing with the Czech turmoil has to do with the Lisbon Treaty. The way this plot line develops depends on who prevails in Czech politics. Will it be the euroskeptic President Vaclav Klaus or the Klaus-averse coalition of Topolanek’s Civic Democrats and the opposition Social Democrats that may be emerging?

We await the Czech Senate’s vote on the treaty. If Klaus manages to name a government to his own liking, the vote could well drop out of the Senate agenda until after next year’s Senate elections when there is a chance the pro-Lisbon Social Democrats will win more seats than they now have. This will be taken very badly by our EU partners and will push the country even further to the sidelines. Postponement of the treaty will severely curtail Europe’s decision-making ability at a time when robust action is urgently needed.

There is also a positive scenario. With his surprise visit to the Social Democrats’ party congress in March and other signals of his indirect backing for their campaign to bring down the government, Klaus angered even his euroskeptic loyalists in the Senate. The treaty still has a good chance of being ratified in the Senate. That would be revenge on Klaus and good news for Europe, more important than what kind of government is sitting in Prague this week or next. "

http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=315&NrSection=2&NrArticle=20492&ST1=ad&ST_T1=job&ST_PS1=1&ST_AS1=0&ST2=body&ST_T2=letter&ST_PS2=1&ST_AS2=0&ST3=text&ST_T3=aatol&ST_PS3=1&ST_AS3=0&ST_max=3

Lisbon Treaty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon#Czech_Republic