Sec. Clinton: New START Delays Threaten U.S. National Security

Clinton Says Senate 'Must Act' on Nuclear Arms Pact with Russia - Bloomberg BusinessWeek [link]

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. Senate must vote to ratify a treaty with Russia to cut nuclear weapons when lawmakers return in September from their monthlong recess.
• “Our national security is at risk,” Clinton said in a statement to reporters at the State Department in Washington. “It’s been more than eight months since we’ve had inspectors on the ground in Russia” who give “a vital window into Russia’s arsenal.”
• “When the Senate returns they must act,” Clinton said today. The treaty “will advance our national security and provide stability and predictability between the world’s two leading nuclear powers,” she said.

Romney Stumbles with Flawed Critique of Arms Treaty - John Adams in the Salem News [link]

• Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and is widely believed to be planning another run in 2012, has ventured into the foreign policy arena with a sharp attack on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
• Romney's criticism of New START drew an immediate response from Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former chair of the committee.
• [Romney] did not come across as knowledgeable or well informed, or even thoughtful. The Washington Post, where his statement on the treaty was published, editorialized that his criticism of the treaty was "lacking in substance."
• To be so publicly chastised and corrected by a fellow Republican, who is one of the Senate's most authoritative voices on foreign policy, constitutes a major embarrassment for Romney.

Nuclear Options - James Bennet in the Atlantic Magazine [link]

• It is hard to imagine any Israeli prime minister accepting the responsibility, in the sweep of Jewish history, of standing by while a sworn regional enemy devises nuclear weapons. AsJeffrey Goldberg reports in our cover story, this prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intends to act against Iran if sanctions fail and the United States does not strike.
• As Iran approaches the nuclear threshold, will it be in the American interest to act, or to press the Israelis to stand down, or to let the Israelis attack first, and then act later if necessary? Those are among the questions looming for President Obama and his advisers. Every answer is bad. Robert D. Kaplan argues in this issue that containing a nuclear Iran is the least-bad option. 
• An American administration that was grappling seriously with these options would be doing everything possible, short of war, to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, if only to be able to credibly request world support for eventual military action. It would also be pushing very hard for progress toward Middle East peace. 
• The Obama administration, in other words, shows signs of preparing—even raising some “H--l”—to contain the coming turbulence, and to possibly wrest some gains from it. But the Americans can do only so much. It will be up to the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Iranians, and their neighbors to show that, like Begin and Sadat, they can still take chances, not just on Armageddon, but on peace.

Test Ban Treaty - Salt Lake Tribune Editorial [link]

• Mike Lee is against ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In May, he was for it. But before that, he was against it.
• The United States has conducted hundreds of nuclear test explosions, and most experts agree that no further testing is necessary to maintain the reliability of the existing arsenal. One reason why the United States should favor the treaty is because it would lock in the lead in nuclear weapons knowledge that the United States now has. Without testing, other nations would have a hard time catching up.
• We do not believe that Lee’s reason for not supporting ratification amounts to a serious objection. Particularly given Utahns’ sorry history of downwind exposure to fallout from nuclear testing, Lee should support ratification.
  
  

A View from the Dark Side

The Hartung Test - James Carafano in The Daily Caller [link]

• If William Hartung really believes what he wrote about the New START treaty, he ought to be dead set against it. Seriously.
• On the issue of “whether New START will place limits on U.S. missile defense development efforts,” Hartung declares, “The short answer to this question is ‘no.’”
• If that’s true, then he should have a real problem with the treaty. After all, he started out by arguing that “while START leaves open the possibility of deploying as extensive a missile defense system as possible, there are good reasons to not to do so.”
• Well, if that’s true and he thinks comprehensive missile defense really is dangerous and destabilizing, then he ought to be the first to stand up and denounce Obama’s treaty as inadequate. He ought to be insisting on language that limits missile defense.