George H.W. Bush Urges Senate to Ratify New START

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today, Thursday, December 9, 2010:

START Has Support of at Least One George Bush - Mary Beth Sheridan for The Washington Post [link]

• Former president George H.W. Bush called Wednesday on the Senate to ratify a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, adding his influential voice to a chorus of former officials backing the pact as it awaits a critical vote.
• In a one-sentence statement, Bush said, "I urge the United States Senate to ratify the START treaty."
• The treaty has won the support of all living former secretariesof state, including Condoleezza Rice, who served Bush's son, President George W. Bush. She came out in favor of the treaty Tuesday. It also has the support of nearly all former commanders of the U.S. nuclear force.
• George H.W. Bush's endorsement could serve as political cover for Republicans who have privately expressed willingness to support the treaty but were cautious about breaking with GOP members.
• Obama said Wednesday that he was "confident" that New START would be ratified before the holiday break.

Lugar Eyes Next Week for New START Debate - Scott Conroy for RealClearPolitics [link]

• A spokesman for Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Wednesday signaled optimism that that the Senate will move quickly to take up debate on ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia sooner than had been expected.
• Helmke said that Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had spoken to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about taking up debate on the treaty early next week but had not spoken about it with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Kyl has long been the Republican point-person on New START and has repeatedly said that the Senate would not get around to the issue in the lame-duck session.
• Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), echoed Lugar's optimism that the votes were there for passage of the treaty, with or without Kyl's support...Manley affirmed that Sen. Reid still intends to take the treaty to the floor but declined to set a schedule.
• Speaking in the Oval Office after a bilateral meeting with Polish President Komorowski on Wednesday, Obama denied any linkage between New START and the taxes deal, saying the treaty needs to be ratified "on its own merits."
• Proponents of the treaty -- including the vast majority of members of both parties' foreign policy establishments -- have advocated for quick passage, pointing to the current lack of inspections of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

Chief Obstacle to Iran's Nuclear Effort: Its Own Bad Technology - Greg Thielmann and Peter Crail in The Christian Science Monitor [link]

• Long before the mysterious Stuxnet computer virus struck an apparent blow at Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s nuclear effort was being delayed by a far more mundane problem: bad technology.
• The technical hurdles that Iran continues to face with its nuclear program help explain why US officials say Iran is still 3 to 5 years away from acquiring the bomb. This provides time and leverage for diplomatic approaches to be pursued.
• The most fundamental problem with Iran’s enrichment program appears to be its own centrifuge design...Centrifuge technology is already a very difficult process to master, since it requires constructing complex machinery at precise specifications to allow the cylindrical devices to spin at supersonic speeds, day in and day out. Reverse engineering faulty, smuggled equipment, as Iran has tried to do, only makes this challenge worse.
• Replacing centrifuges is not a trivial issue, either. Iran still needs access to high-quality materials and components produced to very specific parameters. Its smuggling network to acquire such goods is sophisticated, but increasing international support for UN sanctions has helped to cut off some of Iran’s procurement pathways.
• The meeting between Iran and the six major powers this week did not resolve much. But a diplomatic process of this kind takes time, and requires confidence to be built between both sides. Proposals such as the “fuel-swap” deal trading reactor fuel for enriched uranium can help build such necessary confidence, as well as buy additional time for a negotiation process.
• And we should be mindful of just how much time we have, before once again taking any destabilizing actions ourselves that may only worsen the threat.

Note: Greg Thielmann is a senior fellow with the Arms Control Association and former senior professional staffer of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Peter Crail is a nonproliferation analyst with the Arms Control Association. The Arms Control Association is a Ploughshares Fund grantee.

Senate Should Not Stop Progress of New START - Howard L. Hall for The Knoxville News Sentinel [link]

• The START treaty expired last December. Under that treaty, the United States and Russia committed to reductions in their nuclear arms and, importantly, to a verification program. Since December 2009, U.S. inspectors have had no authority to conduct on-site inspections of Russian facilities and weapon systems.
• However, the dramatic changes in the make-up of the next Congress in the mid-term elections are causing some to call for delays in taking up the treaty in the Senate. Certainly, this treaty deserves sober, deliberate reflection, and that should take as much time as is needed. However, it appears that calls for delay at this time are based on plain old hardball politics.
• This does not serve the nation well. New START is important to our national security. The treaty has been thoroughly reviewed and endorsed by our military leadership. Our allies protected under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" see it as important. It has significant support from thoughtful leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
• Our state also has an important stake in this issue. We helped build the U.S. nuclear stockpile here, and we are a key part of the dismantlement and demilitarization efforts, as well as ensuring that the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons remain safe, secure and reliable. Tennessee's senators continue to work very hard to ensure that the necessary resources for this work will be available, and that the needed facilities will be adequately funded.
• But failure to ratify New START will damage our ability to persuade the rest of the international community to keep pressure on misbehaving states. And reducing the number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia have pointed at each other is good for all of us.
• The Senate should move promptly to consider New START, taking all the time necessary for a thorough debate and thoughtful consideration. But making it captive to partisan maneuvering is wrong.

Top U.S. Military Official Slams China for Failing to Condemn North Korea - Barbara Demick for The Los Angeles Times [link]

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen says China should have come down on its ally for the deadly incident on Yeonpyeong Island, and criticizes China for failing to rein in North Korea in general.
• "The Chinese have enormous influence over the North, influence that no other nation on Earth enjoys," said Mullen at a news conference at the South Korean Ministry of National Defense. "And yet, despite a shared interest in reducing tensions, they appear unwilling to use it."  [He continued,] "Even tacit approval of Pyongyang's brazenness leaves all their neighbors asking, 'What will be next?'"
• At the joint news conference Wednesday, Han Min-koo, South Korea's top commander, said that rules of engagement are being strengthened to allow commanders on the ground to fire back immediately in case of another attack by North Korea.
• The official Chinese response to the artillery exchange two weeks ago has been to call on the other five nations to resume talks on North Korea's nuclear program. Beijing also criticized the joint U.S.-South Korea naval exercises that were held in the Yellow Sea last week as a demonstration of alliance solidarity.
• The U.S. administration has also signaled that it is not ready to return to the previous diplomatic path of the six-party talks, a position Mullen reiterated Wednesday.  

 View From the Dark Side

Possible GOP Presidential Candidates Lining Up to Oppose New START - Liz Sidoti for The Associated Press [link]

• Republicans weighing a White House bid fiercely oppose a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and stand in stark contrast to two presidents, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George H.W. Bush, on a critical foreign policy issue.
• "It's an obsolete approach that's a holdover from the Cold War and a bilateral treaty without taking into account multilateral threats," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday, becoming the latest potential 2012 candidate to object to swift passage of the treaty without changes.
• Gingrich joins Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, John Thune and Sarah Palin -- all outspoken critics of the pact. The bright line between would-be GOP challengers and the incumbent Democrat raises the likelihood that the New START treaty will become a 2012 issue and its success or failure will reverberate as the next presidential campaign takes shape.
• On the treaty, potential candidates are to the right of several prominent Republicans, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, an arms control expert and the top GOP lawmaker on the Foreign Relations Committee.
• Polling shows the public is on Obama's side. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe the Senate should ratify it. Besides a strong majority of Democrats, supporters include more than six in 10 Republicans.