Iranian elephant interceptors planned for Poland

According to a recent article in the New York Times, the U.S. is offering a couple of very special European countries their very own interceptor missiles, designed to prevent Iranian elephant strikes. I myself have one of my own, sitting on my desk. I also have one that is designed to prevent North Korean tiger attacks. I got it back when I lived in Hawai`i, because I heard that soon the North Koreans would have the ability to launch ferocious, man-eating predators halfway across the Pacific Any Day Now. So far, I'm happy to report they've performed flawlessly.

In seriousness, I'm supposed to believe we are going to launch an untested but nonetheless operational theatre missile defense system in Eastern Europe, presumably to defend them against non-existent Iran ballistic missiles. And yet, for some mysterious reason, the Russians are not so thrilled about it.

Huh.

They have got to be kidding:

To improve the coverage against a potential Iranian threat, the Pentagon is upgrading a radar complex at Fylingdales, a British air base, and plans to begin similar work at the American Thule Air Base in Greenland. By building an antimissile base in Europe, the Pentagon is seeking to position the interceptors close to the projected flight path of Iranian missiles that would be aimed toward Europe or continue on a polar route to the United States.

I seem to remember that Saddam had nuclear-tipped drone aircraft poised to destroy us with poisoned tree frogs contaminated with anthrax or something, but I don't recall any attempt to beef up radar installations at the North Pole. Now suddenly the Iranians are building missiles that could hit us Any Day Now:

As far as we can tell, Iran is many years away from having the capability to deliver a military strike against the U.S.," said Gary Samore, vice president of the MacArthur Foundation and a former aide at the National Security Council. "If they made a political decision to seriously pursue a space launch vehicle it would take them a decade or more to develop the capability to launch against the U.S."

So what is this really about?