Former U.S. President George W. Bush did Barack Obama one favor. Bush’s plans to counter the Iranian missile threat with a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland bequeathed his successor a bargaining chip. Otherwise, the whole thing was a bad idea from the start. Due to the Earth’s curvature and other such basic factors, Poland was hardly the ideal spot for the missiles. Not to mention the fact that they probably wouldn’t work anyway.

Neither would the missile defense installations have improved Poland and the Czech Republic’s security one iota. They are both NATO members and probably safer than they’ve ever been in their history. On the contrary, the missiles reduced their security by drawing and focusing the Kremlin’s ire. Medvedev threatened to deploy Iskander missiles at Poland’s doorstep in Kaliningrad, a threat made only hours after Obama’s election.

Also, there was no strong popular support for the project in either Poland or the Czech Republic. In any case, the installation would not have been ready until 2018, and judging by the recent discovery of the nuclear facility near Qom and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report that Iran now has the data to design a nuclear weapon, the world doesn’t have nine years before Iran becomes a nuclear power.

So, it didn’t cost Obama much to trade away the Bush missile defense project, especially since U.S. sea-to-air missiles are apparently more effective and politically less problematic.

Indeed, Obama had to withdraw the Bush plan before he announced the intelligence findings about Iran’s secret uranium-enrichment facility because he wanted the Russians on board for stricter sanctions if no resolution could be found to this issue.

But if there is one Qom, why can’t there be two or even 10? “If you were the manager of the Iranian nuclear program, how likely is it that you would put all your nuclear eggs in one basket?” asks Graham Allison, assistant defense secretary under former President Bill Clinton. He expects that “over the months ahead, Iran will either be found to have a number of other sites or Iran may even announce that it has a number of other sites.”

Iran has good reason to seek to become a nuclear power. It is surrounded by nuclear nations — Israel to the west, Russia to the north and Pakistan and India to the east. In addition, the United States is fighting wars on both sides of Iran — in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lastly, Iran’s history in the 20th century was marked by incursions and humiliating manipulations by foreign powers, including England, the Soviet Union and the United States. Considering Iran’s history and its geopolitical situation, its acquisition of nuclear weapons could appear as an imperative.

The Geneva talks, which brought the United States and Iran together for high-level negotiations for the first time in 30 years, have both symbolic and substantive significance. They also have an aura of win-win: Washington gets a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough, and Moscow gets off the hook while gaining a little income from enriching Iranian uranium.

But if the talks are only a delay tactic — just another element in what Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls a “pattern of deception and lies” — a showdown is in the offing. Obama will have to demonstrate that he is capable of dealing with a full-blown international crisis. And Russia will finally have to decide whether to act like a serious power or side with the sinister clowns like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

Richard Lourie is the author of “The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”