Yesterday, for the second time this year, Iran test-fired their Sejil-2 ballistic missile. The mid-range weapon has a range of about 1200 miles, long enough to target Israel, Egypt, southeastern Europe, and many American bases in the Middle East.

So if Iran has twice test-fired missiles this year that can hit targets stretching from Israel to Europe, then how can the Obama administration possibly justify reneging on agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to host land based missile defense? The New York Times explains:

Earlier this month, administration officials cited what they called accumulating evidence that Iran had made more progress than anticipated in building short- and medium-range missiles that could threaten Israel and Europe than it had in developing the intercontinental missiles that the Bush system was more suited to counter.

So the Obama administration is claiming that since Iran has only developed medium-range missiles so far, the only protection our soldiers and allies in Europe need is from medium-range missiles. But why not protect them from both? Before President Obama’s reversal we were building systems to protect against medium and long-range threats. All the Obama administration did is cut our missile defenses in half. We are in a desperate race to beat the clock on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Why on earth are we stopping now to let the Iranians catch up?