Putin bullies hapless Obama to force Senate to ratify new START treaty

By Phil Boehmke

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is really enjoying the ‘Reset’ in U.S./Russian relations under the weak-kneed Obama presidency. The disastrous Obama-Clinton foreign policy has given Mr. Putin a golden opportunity to regain Russia’s once feared super-power status. After persuading Mr. Obama to betray our Polish and Czech allies by abruptly canceling the missile defense system, Putin convinced Barry and Hillary to sign the new START treaty which clearly favors Russia.

The latest round of WikiLeaks combined with Mr. Obama’s inability to force the new START treaty on a increasingly skeptical Senate has provided Mr. Putin with yet another opportunity to bully the hapless Obama. The Moscow Times reports:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in an interview released Wednesday that Russia might be forced to build up its nuclear forces against the West if the United States fails to ratify a new arms reduction pact reached earlier this year.

The warning was the second in as many days after President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that failure to develop a joint European missile shield with NATO could create an arms race in the next decade and force the Russian military to deploy new offensive weapons near the border of the security bloc.

If the United States Senate fails to ratify the New START treaty that Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed in April, Russia will have to start adding weapons, Putin said.

“That’s not our choice. We don’t want that to happen. But this is not a threat on our part,” Putin said, according to an excerpt of an interview with CNN’s Larry King, recorded Tuesday and posted on the CNN website Wednesday. “We’ve been simply saying that that is what we all expect to happen if we don’t agree on a joint effort there.”

Mr. Putin explained to Larry King that ratifying the new START treaty would be in the United States best interest and that failing to do so would be “very dumb.” Maybe it’s just me, but hearing Vladimir Putin tell us that ratifying the treaty is in our best interests does not assuage any of my concerns. If the treaty was really in our best interests, why would Mr. Putin feel compelled to threaten us with a ramped-up arms race is we don’t accept it?

December 2, 2010

paboehmke@yahoo.com