WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s hopes for rapid, bipartisan approval of its new arms-control treaty with Russia have dimmed, with Republican senators making clear that they will not support ratification without iron-clad assurances of future spending to maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, announced Tuesday that he will delay a key vote on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) until after the summer recess, pitching the pact into the politically charged period just before the November elections.
The administration remains optimistic that the accord can be approved this year, and Kerry said the delay would help rather than harm the effort. But the debate has illustrated the partisan distrust in the Senate, where Republicans have taken the unusual step of seeking to examine the classified negotiating record to truth-squad the administration’s claims.
Brent Scowcroft, the national-security adviser for President George H.W. Bush, said the political battle was the most bitter he had seen over a nuclear treaty.
“It doesn’t move the ball very much,” Scowcroft said of the pact, which he supports. “But there’s an atmosphere of great hostility.”
Many U.S. allies had assumed New START would easily be ratified this year. The treaty commits the United States and Russia to modest cuts in their long-range, ready-to-use weapons and extends a 15-year system allowing each side to check the other’s nuclear facilities. It is the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s attempt to “reset” relations with Moscow.
The treaty has been endorsed by six former secretaries of state and five former secretaries of defense from both parties, and nearly all former commanders of U.S. nuclear forces.
Republicans are insisting on more guarantees for a 10-year budget hike to fix up the aging nuclear-weapons complex.
