[Arab News] President Barack B.O. Obama scored key wins Wednesday in both foreign policy and domestic politics as more than the required two-thirds of the Senate -- including 13 Republicans who defied their party's leadership -- voted to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia.
Obama hailed the bipartisan outcome during a short-notice presser in which he claimed that it "sends a powerful signal to the world that Republicans and Democrats stand together on behalf of our security."
Ratification of the New START capped an intense three-week lobbying campaign conducted by the White House and backed by the Pentagon, the chiefs of the armed services, and former top national security officials ranging across five Republican administrations, including former President George H. W. Bush himself, and former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice.
With such power brokers in support of it, Senate ratification of the START treaty with Russia looked like a shoo-in but, after Republicans raised objections, the debate went down to the wire.
Even though the Pentagon's top brass and Republican cold warriors said it would make America safer, Senate GOP leaders and other confirmed hawks disagreed, saying the president had caved in to Russian demands.
Behind the scenes there was an interesting Jewish link to the START Treaty. Many Jewish groups lined up to support the new treaty in part because they believe it will have an effect on the global effort to isolate Iran.
The B.O. regime and top Jewish Democratic senators, Democrats Sens. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Charles Schumer, N.Y., lobbied Jewish groups to express support for the treaty, saying it was critical to persuading Russia to isolate Iran.
The National Jewish Democratic Council, NJDC, was the first Jewish group to advocate for New START's ratification. Then the Anti-Defamation League, B'Nai Brith, J Street, the American Council for World Jewry, and the American Jewish Committee all joined the advocacy effort out of recognition that a closer relationship with Russia bodes well for Israel's security and our own.
The White House, according to reports, also requested that pro-Israel groups make a push for START, maintaining that solid arms ties with Russia would help chill Iran's nuclear program.
"Senators Schumer and Levin make a powerfully strong case for support for New START -- a case that should resonate with every group in our community that cares about containing Iran," David Harris, president and CEO of the NJDC, said in a statement. "Key figures from both parties agree that this treaty will not only make America more secure, but it will pay concrete dividends in our efforts to isolate Iran. I sincerely hope that every Jewish organization that is concerned about Iran will come forward and aggressively support ratification of New START."
The Schumer-Levin missive noted that the treaty could be "an opportunity to improve relations with Russia, a nation that has provided considerable support for US-led efforts to pressure Iran."
The American Council for World Jewry, one of the first groups to endorse ratification, said ratification means that "Russia's indispensable support in global security -- which includes blocking Iran's rogue nuclear program -- will not be impeded."
Opposing the treaty were a group of Republican senators, led by Rep. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who said its verification measures were inadequate and that it unnecessarily reduced the US profile in Europe.
The treaty provides for resuming critical nuclear inspection programs that had been in place since the end of the Cold War, but ceased with the December 2009 expiration of the first START treaty.
In addition to resuming nuclear-facility verification mechanisms and reducing US and Russian nuclear stockpiles, New START now opens a new chapter in US-Russian cooperation on a range of strategic threats, notably Iran's nuclear program.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2010 00:00 ||
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As an appeal to right wing antisemitism, this is pathetic.
#2
they believe it will have an effect on the global effort to isolate Iran.
More likely due to its adverse affect on America. Levin is a useful idiot and a long-term incumbent Democrat. (redundancy alert!) Religion has nothing to do with it.
I'm getting whiplash trying to follow the Democrats' talking points. Obviously you haven't been paying attention to Journolist ...
First, it was a disaster when Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts. Obama was a wimp. Then it was a horrid error to allow the omnibus spending bill to die (and with it all that funding for ObamaCare). The White House, liberals complained, also blew it on the DREAM act. And now, presto: Obama has mounted a phenomenal comeback!
Not exactly. The sources of the left's delight - repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and ratification of the New START treaty - are irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans.
Voters care, as the Democrats should have but refused to learn during the referendum of 2010 (the midterms results were, one wit cracked, "a restraining order" on liberal statism), about the economy, jobs and the growth of government. These are far and away the most important issues in every credible survey, and will be the focus of the Republicans' 2011 agenda. One can hope!
And if the highlight of Obama's term, according to outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was the "historic" ObamaCare legislation, then the highlight could soon be extinguished. Obama's central domestic achievement is facing judicial scrutiny, a Republican onslaught to repeal, or at least defund, it, and a public that has never "learned" to love the bill. I don't recall Nancy telling us how great it was, after having read it. You think she has read it by now?
Only inside the Beltway could the passage of an arms control treaty and repeal of DADT consume so many for so long and result in such exaggerated punditry. Would Republicans have traded wins on DADT and START for their wins on the DREAM act, the tax deal and the omnibus spending bill? Not in a million years.
But liberal media mavens have a narrative that resists "bad news" (i.e. scandals, polling, the Tea Party movement) that suggests trouble for the Obama administration. They also confuse legislative achievement with political success. If passing stuff was the secret to a political comeback, then the Democrats after ObamaCare and the stimulus plan would have had the greatest year ever. And they did. Until the election.
Obama may yet stage a comeback. But to do that, he'll have to do what the left loathes - cut domestic programs, rework entitlement programs, stand up to foreign adversaries (Obama's legacy is irretrievably ruined if Iran gets the bomb on his watch), cut back on growth-restricting regulations and keep tax rates low. And so long as unemployment remains at historic highs, Obama's chances of re-election remain poor. See that, Charles Krauthammer, speaker of doom and gloom!
But as long as the left wants to succumb to conservatives on the issues that voters care most about - taxes and spending - I suppose conservatives should keep mum. So let's keep this just between us.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/24/2010 10:54 ||
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No Shit, Sherlock?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/24/2010 11:49 Comments ||
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who believes the MSM anyway besides the nutjobs
Posted by: chris ||
12/24/2010 12:00 Comments ||
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Sound like they've received their marching orders.
Not that they needed them.
#5
The Honolulu rag is a slavish devotee of Obama-worship. Theyt have to be pouting about the results of a fluff poll they put up on their website this morning.
Are you hoping to see President Barack Obama
while hes vacationing here in Hawaii?
Krauthammer - WaPo, and an elaboration of a piece from several days ago.
Riding the lamest of ducks, President Obama just won the Triple Crown. He fulfilled (1) his most important economic priority, passage of Stimulus II, a.k.a. the tax cut deal (the perfect pre-re-election fiscal sugar high - the piper gets paid in 2013 and beyond); (2) his most important social policy objective, repeal of "don't ask, don't tell"; and (3) his most cherished (achievable) foreign policy goal, ratification of the New START treaty with Russia.
Politically, these are all synergistic. The bipartisan nature of the tax deal instantly repositioned Obama back to the center. And just when conventional wisdom decided the deal had caused irreparable alienation from his liberal base, Obama almost immediately won it back - by delivering one of the gay rights movement's most elusive and coveted breakthroughs. Convincing and depressing, when you read the whole thing. But see an opposing view, also from the WaPo, below.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/24/2010 07:39 ||
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Sorry, the opposing view is not yet up on the WaPo's site, but I read it in the paper. Really!
Jennifer Rubin says the treaty, DADT, and Stimulus II are minor wins, and socialism, statism, and liberalism all took big hits. I'll check again, later.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/24/2010 7:52 Comments ||
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Repeal of the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy ends a long and sorry history of discrimination against gays and lesbians in military service. Wait. I thought Clinton signed that into law. It was DOD all along? It was Congress, not DoD.
It may also herald the end of another lamentable episode in civil-military relations: the ouster of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) from some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. They'd be more prestigious if they hadn't been so obviously anti-military.
Ivy League institutions kicked ROTC off campus in the 1960s - partly the result of a faculty protest against the Vietnam War, partly to appease sometimes-violent antiwar students. Universities generally did not formally ban ROTC but stripped it of autonomy and for-credit status, without which the program could not operate. Vietnam ended, but the de facto ban did not; instead, it found a new rationale when Congress passed "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) in 1993. Between 1975 and 1993, they were just anti-military, then they found a new cause to hang on their lefty position.
The campus ban was the wrong way to make a valid point: Though operating under not a DOD directive, but a flawed law, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines defended all Americans, gay or straight. Over four decades, the ban contributed to corrosive estrangement between two important American subcultures - elite academia and the military officer corps. It was hypocritical, too. Some institutions that did not welcome ROTC took financial aid that their students earned for participating in the program at other schools. During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain supported a return of ROTC to Ivy League campuses.
Thus, repeal of DADT offers the Ivies and similar schools an opportunity to rejoin the national mainstream. They should seize it - as the presidents of Yale, Harvard and Columbia have already implied they would. I ain't holding my breath.
To be sure, institutions separated for so many years may find it difficult, at first, to work together. Some in both the military and academia have grown comfortable with the status quo and may seek new reasons to perpetuate it. Perhaps the least convincing argument against restoration of Ivy League ROTC is that there won't be enough student interest to warrant the expense. We have a broader notion of cost-effectiveness and a higher opinion of these young scholars' willingness to serve. Leaders in both the Defense Department and the universities should insist that they get the chance. Fairly fair, for the WaPo, I thought.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/24/2010 07:57 ||
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...In fairness, Harvard and Yale both announced moves towards reestablishing ROTC within hours of the repeal. The trouble is that no matter how the school presidents feel (and FWIW, I think they really are willing to bring it back) the faculties and students will fight tooth and nail to resist. In the end then, this means nothing.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/24/2010 8:18 Comments ||
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Do not be surprise if the Harvard ROTC will be 'jam packed' with Gays. It will look like the Village people walking around campus.
#3
Given how well the Ivy League grads have run the nation and economy, I'd rather they NOT be in the military. I'd rather have grads from patriotic ethical institutions
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/24/2010 9:37 Comments ||
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If you want to do ROTC at Harvard now, you take a ten minute Red Line trip down to MIT. I'd prefer they keep it that way because, if they bring it back, Drew Gilpin Faust is liable to break a few ribs patting herself on the back celebrating how enlightened she is. "See. We even support knuckle dragging neanderthals that want to serve in the military"...
#5
Since the proper way to protest DADT would have been to ban members of congress from campus, the left will have to find a new rationale just like in 1993. Probably for being insufficiently 'green' and causing global warming.
#6
[Clears throat]..but they didn't repeal Art 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, subsection of Title 10 U.S.C. They just opened another proverbial 'can of worms'.
#7
P2K, the UCMJ, like the Constitution, is just a living document to liberals. It can be ignored or enforced as needed.
In my opinion, the worst is to come - gays will demand special protected status, so that no one can say ANYTHING against them. Anyone who even yells at them or disciplines them for any reason will be up on charges of homophobia. I know that homophobia isn't in the UCMJ, but maybe Congress could substitute it for article 125.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/24/2010 16:24 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
I'm getting whiplash trying to follow the Democrats' talking points. 
