The Republican Threat to National Security

The Republicans have taken their obsessive obstructionism to a new low.

On what has historically been a non-controversial bipartisan process, the Republicans have taken their desire to damage our country’s President and Commander in Chief to an almost unconscionable level. The START treaty with the Russians providing for nuclear arms inspection and dismantlement could be on indefinite hold thanks to this unrelenting placing politics before the good of the nation. A two-thirds vote is needed in the Senate and the odds of getting that after the new Congress is seated is negligible.

When the leader of the minority party in the Senate states that the primary goal for the next two years will be…not fixing the unemployment problem, not helping the nation recover from the recession, not ensuring a secure old age for seniors but…limiting the President to a single term and defeating him in 2012, you know we are dealing with some deep-seated and intransigent political calculations.

Republicans now seem intent on stopping an “Obama victory” by not ratifying the START treaty negotiated with the Russians. Here’s some news for you - this is damaging to all of us. Sure you will succeed in making President Obama appear weakened on the world stage and for the remainder of his term as President be it 2 or 6 years. Why you should want to do this is beyond me - it’s your country too that is losing credibility and is being endangered.

The two primary impacts of not ratifying this treaty will be a potential souring of the relationship with Russia and the lack of inspection of the Russian nuclear weapons.

Russia has been cooperating with us in trying to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Do we really want to damage this relationship at this point in time?

The danger on non-inspection is not the fear of a nuclear attack by Russia but the potential for nuclear materials to fall into the hands of terrorist or criminal groups if an inspection regime is not implemented. The US military command is completely in agreement that this treaty needs to be ratified. Advisers from previous Republican administrations strongly support it. The current Republican politically-motivated obstructionism endangers all of us.

Republicans claimed they did not want to politicize the issue by having a vote before the elections. Now that they won seats in the Senate, they want to delay until the next session of Congress, when the even more Republican votes will be needed to ratify the treaty and additional committee hearings will be necessary. The inevitable effect will be a delay until “it is too close to the Presidential elections” to take a vote.

The Democrats need to present the case for ratification now - make a full-scale assault on the Republicans’ “reasoning” and show how this obstructionism is endangering the country. Force a vote and call their bluff. If they want to go down as opposing something that all of the people charged with maintaining our security support, then let them.