Missile defense looms over START ratification
The Washington Post
By Mary Beth Sheridan
December 13, 2010
With only days left in the lame-duck Congress, President Obama is pushing hard to accomplish something never before done by a Democratic president: successfully get a nuclear-arms-reduction treaty through the ratification process.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “the support is there” to pass the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) if it comes to the floor. The White House said Friday that Obama is willing to postpone his vacation until the U.S.-Russia pact is ratified.
But it has become clear that Obama is facing a fight over the same issue that derailed President Bill Clinton’s quest for a similar accord – missile defense, a cherished Republican goal dating back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. When Republican senators now say they need a fuller debate on the treaty, this is an important part of what they want to discuss.
“Missile defense remains a major point of disagreement between the United States and Russia, and this treaty only makes the situation worse,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) wrote recently on National Review Online.
Some Republicans say they want to tweak the Senate resolution of ratification with the goal of then supporting it. Others argue the treaty itself needs amendments , which could kill it.
Treaty supporters say the outcry over missile defense is unfounded – and suspect it is a tactic to score political points. They note that there is almost nothing on missile defense in the treaty, which runs more than 300 pages with annexes, and Obama has continued many of George W. Bush’s missile-defense policies.
“One of the great ironies is, he made sure there was no way to attack the treaty as being tough on missile defense,” Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, said of Obama. “And yet that’s exactly one of the main rationales used by treaty critics.” …
Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121204151_pf.html
