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Failure to pass the New START Treaty this year would endanger our national security. Without ratification of this Treaty, we will have no Americans on the ground to inspect Russia’s nuclear activities, no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, less cooperation between the two nations that account for 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and no verified nuclear reductions. The New START treaty is a fundamental part of our relationship with Russia, which has been critical to our ability to supply our troops in Afghanistan and to impose and enforce strong sanctions on the Iranian government.
President Obama has made an extraordinary commitment to ensure the modernization of our nuclear infrastructure, which had been neglected for several years before he took office. We have made clear our plans to invest $80 billion on modernization over the next decade, and, based on our consultations with Senator Kyl, we plan to request an additional $4.1 billion for modernization over the next five years.
When you have to start out by arguing for the thing on the merits, that’s a really bad sign. New START is an unobjectionable treaty. The arguments against it are tendentious bullshit, dismissed with a roll of the eye. The value of monitoring the Russian nuclear arsenal and the hazards of not monitoring it are too obvious to recapitulate. The objections are about politics. So if the Obama administration doesn’t have a good political argument for New START, that’s it. You see one?
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Nope. The people don’t care. To whatever extent they do care, they’re somewhat programmed to be skeptical of compromise with the scary Russian empire. Politically, Obama can’t even invest significant effort into passing new START because if he wins, they’ll say he wasted time doing this dumb treaty when he should have been ‘focused like a laser’ on jobs. And if he loses, it will be ‘he wasted all this time when he wasn’t focused like a laser on jobs and he didn’t even get the stupid treaty ratified.’
What’s more interesting to me is the consequences of not ratifying a major arms control agreement. Has that ever happened before? Will the US and Russia agree to abide by it’s terms anyway? If not, will either nation actually seek to expand their nuclear capabilities, or will it just be the cuts in warheads and missiles that don’t happen? Will the Russians understand that an obstructionist and increasingly insane American political faction derailed the process, or will they see it as some kind of con being run on them by the US?
mikey
Sing it.
This Oh Bummah! administration is garbage. A total failure. A bunch of lying, hypocritical incompetent bastatrds. Fuck ‘em all.
America doesn’t do treaties anymore. The occasional trade deal maybe, but treaties are pussy. They limit us, in theory. It is after all mildly embarrassing to renounce them. No big deal but still……
Don’t you worry however. Old Senator Lugar will still vote with the leadership 100% of the time and continue to pretend the old days are still here and mumble about it.
I’d say that this is the song off of Wild Gift that is most resonant with this administration…
The way I read this is that the Repugs have decided to continue their strategy of “Just Say No!” to anything and everything that Obama and the Democrats support.
They’ve concluded there is no down side to doing so (as evidenced by their erroneous interpretation of the 2010 election results), so Kyl’s opposition is merely the continuation of the same Repug standup routine.
And one should take as gospel that it matters not at all to the Repugs that a new START is valuable to the US, or for that matter any other legislation is in the country’s best interest, the Repugs will continue to “Just Say No!” because they believe they win politically even if the nation suffers as a result.
You’re exaggerating. Kyl’s opposition was no surprise to anyone tracking the treaty. It was always a Repub objective to deny Obama any foreign policy achievement before the election, this is just rubbing salt in the wounds. While Sen Lugar wants this treaty, he doesn’t have the balls or the power to influence his idiot neocon colleagues.
You might recall that Sen. Jesse Helms held up the Chemical Weapons Convention from ratification for about four years, but it was eventually signed because even idiot Republicans recognize that treaties have a purpose in limiting the weapons of the Other Side. Kyl’s just looking for some time to strut around the barnyard like a bantam rooster, and Obama doesn’t have the moxy to pull the trigger on this ass.