According to the article below an implied reason that O backed off on the missile defense shield was to encourage Russia to help coerce Iran to drop it's nuke program.
Russia appears to be going along.
Quote:
White House officials could barely hide their glee. "I couldn't have said it any better myself," a delighted Michael McFaul, Mr. Obama's senior adviser for democracy and Russia, told reporters after the meeting. He insisted nonetheless that the administration had not tried to buy Russia's cooperation with its decision to scrap the missile shield in Europe in favor of a reconfigured system.
Privately, several administration officials did acknowledge that missile defense might have had something to do with Moscow's newfound verbal cooperation on the Iran sanctions issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/24prexy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
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Anyone wanna predict how will this play out over the next 18 months or so?