Remember how critics used to dismiss as "Star Wars" President Ronald Reagan's vision of a system that would intercept missiles from foreign nations or terrorists?
Fortunately, the critics didn't hold sway, and we recently read that the United States is deploying a missile defense system in Europe: "A warship capable of detecting and shooting down ballistic missiles headed for the Mediterranean Sea on Monday as the U.S. started implementing its plan to protect Europe from a potential Iranian nuclear threat," The Associated Press reported.
The full deployment of the system will take about a decade and will involve interceptors and radar on land and sea around Europe. It is sadly necessary because of the danger posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the irrational nature of its radical Muslim leaders.
If the system works as expected, Europe may breathe a sigh of relief that the critics didn't manage to derail Reagan's "Star Wars" vision.