Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Center Chairman General Gard has written an op-ed on the support of military leadership for the President’s nuclear weapons agenda published today by the McClatchy-Tribune news service. The article, GOP critics vs. the Pentagon, appeared in Lexington, Kentucky in the Lexington Herald-Leader

An old proverb states that when you’re in a hole, you should stop digging.  When it comes to missile defense, many Republicans prefer to keep digging.  Perhaps none in recent memory have dug quite so spectacularly as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) during and after Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…

During the question-and-answer period, DeMint reiterated the standard far-right boilerplate that New START will limit U.S. missile defenses and provide Russia with a veto over U.S. programs – despite repeated reassurances from Gates, Mullen, and Clinton that the treaty will not in any way constrain U.S. missile defense plans.  Yet what separated DeMint’s attack from most other Republican critiques was his assertion that the treaty will “keep our missile defense to the point where it does not render their [Russia’s] weapons useless.”

Fred Kaplan and Peter Baker have already provided great summaries of the exchange.  Baker’s account is particularly effective in exposing DeMint as less than informed on national security policy:

Mr. DeMint’s grievance, though, goes contrary to Mr. Bush’s vision for the program. Throughout his presidency, Mr. Bush stated again and again that missile defense would not threaten Russia’s security. His plan called for just 10 interceptor missiles in Poland that could counter a possible future Iranian threat, but that would be useless against Russia’s thousands of warheads.

“The system is not designed to deal with Russia’s capacity to launch multiple rockets,” Mr. Bush said at his last meeting with Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s president, in Sochi, Russia, in April 2008. “It’s in our interests to try to figure out a way for the Russians to understand the system is not aimed at them, but aimed at the real threats of the 21st century,” Mr. Bush said at a news conference a couple months before that.

Mr. DeMint’s complaint about the treaty conflates the missile defense program launched by Mr. Bush and continued in different form by Mr. Obama with the original idea expressed during the cold war by President Ronald Reagan, who envisioned a much more robust program that actually was intended to neutralize the Russian nuclear arsenal.

As Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush’s secretary of state, said in 2008: “This is not that program. This is not the son of that program. This is not the grandson of that program. This is a very different program that is meant to deal with limited threats. There is no way that a few interceptors in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic can degrade the thousands of nuclear warheads that the Russians have. And there is no intent to do so.”

At the hearing, Mr. DeMint suggested that it should be the intent.

“Is it not desirable for us to have a missile defense system that renders their threat useless?” he asked.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic committee chairman, replied, “I don’t personally think so, no.” He argued that such a move would launch a new arms race with Russia.

Mr. Gates agreed. “That, in our view, as in theirs, would be enormously destabilizing, not to mention unbelievably expensive.”

A few hours after the hearing, Mr. DeMint recounted the exchange in a blog posting on the web site of the Heritage Foundation.

“With his response, Senator Kerry proved why Americans have a hard time fully trusting the left to put American interests first in foreign affairs,” he wrote.

He made no mention of Mr. Gates or Mr. Bush. [emphasis mine.]

Notice how DeMint tries to associate the view that U.S. missile defense shouldn’t negate Russia’s deterrent with “the left.”  Nice try, Senator!  In addition to Gates and W., the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States concluded that “Defenses sufficient to sow doubts in Moscow or Beijing about the viability of their deterrents could lead them to take actions that increase the threat to the United States and its allies and friends.” (Oh and I would of course be remiss in not extending kudos to the Heritage Foundation for allowing DeMint to attempt to completely whitewash the record!)      

This entire episode would actually be pretty hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that DeMint is one of 100 Americans who will actually decide the fate of New START.

For the fourth year in a row, the House Armed Services Committee has ignored Pentagon recommendations (including a veto threat from Sec. Gates) and approved the continued development of the F136 alternate engine, developed by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, for the F-35 fighter aircraft program.  

The measure would require the Pentagon to budget for the alternate engine starting in fiscal 2012 and withhold 25 percent of fiscal 2011 funds for F-35 development until the Pentagon’s top arms buyer certified that all funds for the engine’s development and procurement had been made available.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said during the markup today that “competition is warranted and critical and costs nothing more, according to the GAO.”

This isn’t quite true.  Money for the upfront costs of building and buying an alternate engine are not included in current DoD plans, so any increase is just that – an increase – and any actual savings brought about by competition will easily be eaten up.

“Study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy upfront costs — nearly $3 billion worth,” Gates said on May 8.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell reiterated later today that Gates would recommend a veto if Congress budgets any funds for the alternate engine:

Pursuing an extra engine is an unnecessary luxury we simply cannot afford, especially in our current fiscal condition… Any savings that might result from an engine competition are years away, purely hypothetical and likely modest at best.

Morrell went on to say that amount we will spend to complete an alternate engine for the F-35 “would prevent us from providing our warfighters with more urgently needed equipment.”

Hat tip to the Institute for Science and International Security for obtaining a copy of the Iran sanctions resolution draft presented to the United Nations Security Council yesterday evening. You can download the .PDF here.

The other side of the ‘time’ coin I mentioned yesterday (a far less optimistic side) is Iran’s potential use of the fuel swap to stall sanctions.  In the past, this technique has worked out well.  If one assumes that, once again, Iran is not sincere in its offer and is simply “playing Lucy and the football with the LEU,” negotiations could be over before they even begin.

Enter Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at this morning’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START.  

“We have reached agreement on a strong draft with the cooperation of both Russia and China,” she says, at the most inopportune and, frankly odd, time possible:

We plan to circulate that draft resolution to the entire Security Council today. And let me say, Mr. Chairman, I think this announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.

Hmm – wasn’t expecting that.  I am reminded, though, of the reason I decided to support now-President Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries.

If the council adopts the resolution, it would represent the fourth round of sanctions against Iran.  Unfortunately for sanctions, many have already accepted their inevitable failure…

In recent weeks administration officials have been downplaying expectations. Mrs. Clinton no longer refers to ‘crippling’ sanctions, the word she used in the summer of 2009. Earlier this year she referred to ‘biting’ sanctions, and President Obama, in an interview in April, declined to characterize how the sanctions would affect Iran. Other officials say they do not expect these sanctions, even if they pass as now written, to dramatically change Iran’s behavior.

With this realization and a heavy dose of skepticism, the administration has decided to go against better judgment and impose sanctions anyway… quickly… just to get them out of the way and then…negotiate?  Probably not.

Clinton’s statement this morning looks like an all out rejection.

As details of a new UN sanctions resolution begin to emerge, members of the Security Council acknowledge that sanctions are not an end game.  The Obama Administration will need to move forward with other options, even with strong multilateral sanctions in place.

Ambassador Susan Rice and others noted at the UN that the original purpose of the fuel swap was as a confidence-building measure.  Without that benefit, the swap holds little meaning.  Iran’s refusal to suspend enrichment to 20 percent and an amorphous timeline for removal of LEU in the Turkey-Brazil deal have been deemed “unacceptable,” according to Clinton.

While Iran has shown that it does not want these sanctions or further international isolation, and may therefore bend to international pressure, the political timing of this announcement is anything but ideal.  To maintain face, Iran’s leaders will feel that they need to come out strongly against the US for refusing to accept (or even negotiate on) their own deal.

Sadly, this move could easily represent a step back in US/Iran relations and, potentially, progress in stalling Iran’s nuclear program.