Poland’s new government is right to be taking a skeptical second look at the Bush administration’s proposal to station 10 interceptor missiles there as part of a European-based missile-defense system. The pragmatic conservatives voted into power in October want to make sure that the project offers real security benefits to Poland that outweigh its potential diplomatic costs.

The Poles are not the only ones with doubts. Last month, a thousand Czechs marched through Prague demanding a referendum on whether the system’s radar should be built in the Czech Republic, as the Bush administration wants. In Washington, Congress has voted to withhold money from the entire project until the Poles and the Czechs give final parliamentary approval.

It now seems that the only one with any enthusiasm for the effort is President Bush, who continues to argue that the shield is necessary to protect Europe and the United States from a potential attack by Iran.

Meanwhile, Moscow is using the system as an excuse for its blustering and serial misbehavior. Paying a huge monetary and diplomatic price to respond to a threat that does not yet exist with a system that does not yet work has always seemed foolish and counterproductive. Polish and Czech leaders seemed initially to like the idea because they saw an American military presence on their soil as further protection against Russia. Russia’s theatrical fury over the plan, coupled with the Bush administration’s general decline, has taken the gloss off.

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