We just posted my story in Obama administration efforts to get Jewish groups on board in urging the Senate to ratify the START weapons reduction treaty with Russia.
The logic is that a happy Russia is a Russia that isolates Iran.
We had to cut from the bottom for the papers, but I wanted to get the last paragraphs up here to convey a) that ratification now! truly is the conventional wisdom in DC (doesn’t mean it’s wrong or right, but it’s important to get the consensus across) and b) some smart analysts took time to talk to me, and I wanted to give them their due.
I’m picking up from the last two paragraphs of the story:
In an interview, JINSA Executive Director Tom Neumann said that the group and its allies — led by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) — are not opposed to the treaty per se, but want the time to consider its provisions, particularly related to modernizing the U.S. stockpile that would remain after its provisions were instituted.
The treaty would cut the U.S. stockpile by about a third, from about 2,200 to slightly more than 1,500.
"It’s about making sure all your ducks are in place," Neumann said. He suggested that Obama and Democrats were eager to pass the treaty before their representation in the Senate drops by five to 53 in the new Congress. "The question is who gets to make the decision, this Congress or the next Congress."
Obama administration officials say the treaty has been reviewed with fine-toothed combs. Gottemoeller said she has answered a thousand questions on the treaty – twice as many as her predecessors fielded from the Senate on early treaties.
The Washington consensus is that time appears to be short. Backing the White House was an array of Republican administration secretaries of state, including from the most recent Bush administration; Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee; and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty 14-4 in September. White House officials and Democrats say Kyl is revisiting the issue because he perceives Obama to be weak in the wake of devastating midterm elections, in which Democrats lost the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans could pay a political price for not ratifying, said Stephen Flanagan, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an arms stretegist in the first Bush and the Clinton administrations.
"This is what the Republicans have to worry about," Flanagan said. "If the relationship turns sour and they became less cooperative on Iran, they could be blamed."
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and strongman, told CNN last week that it would be "dumb" for the Senate not to ratify, and that Russia might start building up forces otherwise.
Joel Rubin, the deputy director of the liberal-leaning National Security Network, said the longterm effects could also be deleterious to U.S. interests.
"We have not had inspectors on the ground looking at the Russian nuclear arsenal for more than a year," he said. "That harms our national security."
Finally. the Jewish organization tally so far: ADL, NJDC, AJC, American Council on World Jewry, the Reform movement. J Street and the JCPA all back ratification. B’nai B’rith International kind of does.
JINSA is against.
AIPAC? Still shtum.
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