New Start

Is there anything lamer than Susan Collins publicly begging for an endorsement of the Treaty by the former Presidents Bush?  Of course, the elder is no expert (although he had the smarts to hire and rely on experts in foreign policy), and the younger wouldn't have a clue about the merits of the Treaty.  So what is Collins saying?  Certainly not that she is awaiting the expert judgment of the Bushes.  I read this as her saying:  I'm a moral coward and afraid to vote contrary to the highly partisan agenda insisted on by McConnell and Kyl.  If the two living Republican ex-Presidents both tell me it's ok to vote for the treaty, maybe I will.

This is just pathetic, although probably no more pathetic than her colleagues who know that this Treaty should be approved but are afraid to speak out. 

On a related front, I just read Jennifer Rubin's Commentary blog.  She says that Senator Kit Bond claims  that the verification procedures in the Treaty are insufficient.  Her conclusion:

"But what of the argument that without New START, we won’t have a verification system in place? Go get a better treaty, Republicans would respond. That’s no easy order, especially for an administration that contorts itself to avoid stressing its new relationship with the Russians. In sum, Obama negotiated a not-very-good treaty and now can’t get it through the Senate. Sort of a mess, isn’t it? Welcome to the Obama foreign policy brain trust." 

In other words, Obama should have negotiated better terms, so let's vote this down and go back to seek a better deal.  Classic Monday morning quarterbacking:  There is no way to determine if a better deal could have been secured, and it's all too easy to make this assertion.  Even if it is true that the terms could have been better, that's not necessarily a reason to reject the treaty, particularly since, if defeated, it's extremely unlikely that Russia can be engaged to improve the deal in the near future.

I have absolutely no expertise in this area and, therefore, as with any technical subject, must rely on the judgment of experts.  The little that I have read that contains any specific criticism of the Treaty appears to be effectively countered by others with some expertise.  Rubin cites Bond asserting two problems---the lack of restriction on Russia's multi-warhead missiles and the weakness of the verification procedures.  I believe I've seen the former issue taken apart by experts at the time that Mitt Romney raised it, and I suspect that the latter objection is also flawed.

The objections that I have seen to the Treaty appear, at least to me, to be nothing more than complaints that the Treaty isn't totally one-sided in our favor.  These seem to be excuses, rather than reasons, for opposing the Treaty.  With the weight of the traditional foreign policy establishment and the military leadership supporting the approval of the Treaty, it's simply astonishing that the Republicans in Congress would make an issue of this.  This is yet further evidence that the Congressional Republicans have adopted a deliberate strategy of opposing anything Obama is for, for the sole purpose of denying him any "victories".  Since I can't see this Treaty as a campaign issue one way or the other, it's hard to explain the approach here, except to say that this fits into an overall strategy of saying "no" to everything, and trying to make the Federal Government on Obama's watch as disfunctional as possible.  Words can't even describe how awful these people are.