The Real Peacemakers

Here's a trivia question to start off your week: What do John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all have in common?

There are 3 answers to this:

1. They were or are all Democrats
2. They all came to office on a pledge to reduce nuclear weapons with the Russians
3. All failed

What do Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all have in common?

Again, 3 answers to the question:

1. They were all Republicans
2. They were all pilloried by the mainstream media for being warmongers or bellicose arm chair warriors who refused to make peace with our adversaries
3. All successfully concluded treaties with Moscow:

• Nixon concluded the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty
• Reagan successfully concluded the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (IMF) treaty
• George H.W. Bush gets credit for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
• George W. Bush signed off on the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT)

By contrast, the Democrats, who talked the most about nuclear arms reduction, have the least to show for it. Jimmy Carter did negotiate the SALT II treaty, but was forced to withdraw it from Senate consideration after the Soviets big-footed their way into Afghanistan at an inopportune moment. At the same time President Carter was trumpeting his successes at lowering tensions in the world, Soviet panzer divisions were moving out to the Afghan border.

Similarly, Bill Clinton talked a good game when it came to arms reduction, but even his considerable political skill and personal magnetism failed to stop the Senate from rejecting the 1999 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Stephen Rademaker, an arms negotiator under George W. Bush, noted in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Democrats fail at the hard work of making peace, as opposed to talking about peace, because by making disarmament the tall pole in their tent they encourage the Russians to overplay their hands at the bargaining table.

"This was a problem for Messrs. Carter and Clinton," writes Mr. Rademaker, "(a)nd it promises to be an even bigger one for Mr. Obama, who comes to office with an arms-control agenda-the abolition of nuclear weapons-far more ambitious than that of any previous administration."

The verification procedures for the START treaty expire in 60 days. President Obama's tactical focus should be getting them renewed. It should not be on using the deadline as an excuse to reopen the treaty to weigh it down with strategic objective that, while laudable, will bog down negotiations and put his administration under the gun for getting a deal done. So says Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana).

Mr. Obama has already agreed to a Russian demand to include not only warheads but delivery systems in the negotiations. That decisions harms the U.S. more than it does the Russians. Right now all the pressure, much of it self-inflicted, is on Pres. Obama-not the Russians-to conclude a deal by the December deadine.

In a little over a week an event that is important in the history of disarmament relations will probably pass without notice in the mainstream media. But it is worth remembering how Ronald Reagan negotiated 23 years with his Soviet counterparts. Rather than be stampeded into a bad deal he walked away from the table, knowing that no deal was better than what the Soviets were offering:

History shows that Pres. Reagan was right to walk away from a bad deal. In doing so he set the stage for several disarmament treaties that benefited both countries.

The clock is ticking. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Obama has the fortitude to walk away from a bad deal, as Ronald Reagan once did, or whether he will capitulate to the left wing of his party and the Russians.

Somehow I think I know the answer.

Just thought you might like to know.