Mutally Assured Satisfaction

I agree with Matthew Yglesias' take on Obama's cancellation of the proposed missile defense system in eastern Europe:

Today, the Obama administration announced officially that it will kill a
Bush administration initiative to build a missile defense system in Poland and
the Czech Republic in order to protect Europe from Iranian missiles. This is a
good call. Bush’s idea was hugely expensive, and massively illogical. For one
thing, Poland and the Czech Republic aren’t in any sense between Iran and
Europe. Nor is Iran actually threatening Europe with any missiles. Which is why
nobody in Europe particularly wanted this thing built. The exception was the
Poles and Czechs themselves who liked the idea as a token of America’s
commitment to defend them against Russia. Which is how we wound up situation an
anti-Iranian missile shield in a place that doesn’t make sense as an
anti-Iranian measure, but does piss off Russia.