Condoleezza Rice: Ratify New START

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

Stories we're following today, Tuesday, December 7, 2010:

New Start: Ratify, With Caveats - Condoleezza Rice in The Wall Street Journal [link]

• The real threat was that the world's most dangerous weapons could end up in the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes. It is in this context that we should consider the potential contribution of the New Start treaty to U.S. national security.
• The treaty is modest, reducing offensive nuclear weapons to 1,550 on each side—more than enough for deterrence.  While the treaty puts limits on launchers, U.S. military commanders have testified that we will be able to maintain a triad of bombers, submarine-based delivery vehicles and land-based delivery vehicles.
• Moreover, the treaty helpfully reinstates on-site verification of Russian nuclear forces, which lapsed with the expiration of the original Start treaty last year.
• The issue before the Senate is the place of New Start in America's future security.
• A modern but smaller nuclear arsenal and increasingly sophisticated defenses are the right bases for U.S. nuclear security (and that of our allies) going forward.
• With the right commitments and understandings, ratification of the New Start treaty can contribute to this goal. If the Senate enters those commitments and understandings into the record of ratification, New Start deserves bipartisan support, whether in the lame-duck session or next year.

Ratify the New Start Treaty - Anders Fogh Rasmussen in The New York Times [link]

• As a former member of the Danish Parliament, I know better than to tell U.S. senators what to do. But I do want to highlight the importance of the treaty from a NATO perspective.
• At Lisbon, the United States and its 27 NATO allies adopted a new “Strategic Concept” to serve as NATO’s road map for the next decade…And we will develop a territorial missile defense capability as part of our core task: to defend one another against attack.
• Together with President Dmitri Medvedev, we also launched a fundamentally new phase in NATO-Russia relations, with a shared understanding of common security challenges, and agreements to cooperate on Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism and piracy, and missile defense.
• The New Start treaty that is now before the U.S. Senate would also contribute to improved security in Europe. But don’t take my word for it — take the word of the allied leaders, from old and new members alike, who in Lisbon expressed their unanimous support for ratification of the treaty.
• The New Start treaty would also pave the way for arms control and disarmament initiatives in other areas that are vital to Euro-Atlantic security. Most important would be transparency and reductions of short-range, tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, which allies have called for in our new “Strategic Concept.”
• Ratifying the New Start treaty would create opportunities for even greater cooperation in the future and enhance European security.

Playing Politics With New START Harms U.S. Security - Sam Nunn in The Atlanta Journal Constitution [link]

• The list of national security challenges facing America today is daunting.
• Every one of our core security challenges is made more difficult if ratification of the New START Treaty is delayed or, worse, if the treaty is defeated in the U.S. Senate.
• When both sides respond to the worst-case, it is not only expensive, but can be very dangerous, so the verification procedures in the New START Treaty are crucial to both U.S. and Russian security.
• Delaying ratification of this treaty, or defeating it, to inflict a political defeat on the Obama administration would damage U.S. security interests and U.S. credibility globally. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, former Strategic Nuclear Commanders and our intelligence community leadership all have stated that the treaty is essential to our nation’s security.
• The ratification of New START will not solve all of our front-burner security issues. It will, however, make cooperation from other nations more likely and more effective and therefore enhance American security.
• I am hopeful that the Senate will put our nation’s security first by providing advice and consent to this important treaty.

Nuclear Program Dominates Talks Between Iran, World Powers - Glenn Kessler in The Washington Post [link]

• Iran and six world powers held their first talks in more than a year on Monday, with Iran's nuclear program dominating the discussions, according to officials familiar with the proceedings.
• Coming into the discussions, Iranian officials had vowed that the nuclear program was not on the table. But in what seems like a promising sign, one official said that "70 to 80 percent" of the more than three hours of morning talks was focused on the program.
• The talks will resume Tuesday morning, a Western official said, suggesting that progress is being made. Before arriving, the Iranian delegation had said the talks would last one day.
• The chief Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, began his presentation by pointedly noting the recent killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist, according to officials and Iran's state-run Mehr News Agency. The lead negotiator for the six world powers - European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton - said that all six countries present condemned the assassination, and the discussion turned to other matters.
• Jalili focused on the mutual mistrust between Iran and the other nations at the table, which were the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, according to a source close to the talks. Jalili raised the possibility of working together on regional issues and the other nations responded that "the heart of the mistrust is Iran's nuclear program," the source said.
  

A View From The Dark Side

Obama's Contempt of Congress - Frank Gaffney in The Washington Times [link]

• Even for a man known for his arrogance, President Obama's treatment of the Senate in connection with the New START Treaty is astounding. His demand that senators approve this defective accord during the few days remaining in the lame-duck session amounts to contempt of Congress. It must not be tolerated, let alone rewarded.
• The Obama administration's insistence that senators accede to his efforts to relegate them to rubber stamps is without precedent. As a bipartisan group of 15 former senators observed recently, never before in the history of the U.S. Senate has the deliberation and vote on an arms-control agreement been truncated by being conducted during a lame-duck session.
• It turns out, the real need for verification lies elsewhere - namely, in establishing what Team Obama has given away with respect to missile defense in the course of negotiating New START and in the months since that treaty was signed.
• As a result, every request by senators for the negotiating record has been spurned in what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently characterized as a "no-hit" game. Presumably, she is referring to the success her department and the rest of the administration have had in suppressing opposition witnesses, inconvenient questions and unhelpful information.
• The question is: Will the Senate allow such contempt to be tolerated? If so, one thing is sure. There will be more where that comes from.
• NOTE: Senators have already been considering the New START treaty for over seven months and there is a strong precedent for passing major pieces of legislation in lame duck sessions. Check out ACA’s “New START By The Numbers”.