The Fight with the Phantoms of Capitalism

The U.S. President needs nine votes to joyously celebrate Christmas.

President Barack Obama has become a hostage of the American political system. The Republicans are determined to return Russian-American relations to the way they were nearly a year ago (before the “reset”) and the Democrats are running out of time to stop their opponents from giving the world the worst Christmas present.

Once again, the focus of everyone’s attention is the new START treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Many people doubted that Obama would be able to quickly and easily complete the ratification process. But few had predicted that by the end of the year, the vote in the U.S. Senate would turn into a real political thriller. A lot of questions hang in the air. For example, why was it necessary to delay the vote until the last minute? Or, why don’t the Democrats put an end to this dispute (that’s already starting to irritate even America’s allies at NATO), if they continue solemnly declaring at every opportunity that they have enough votes to make the fateful decision?

Whatever the case may be, in reality the situation was so deplorable that Obama had to forgo the Christmas holidays, sit down and write letters. As a result, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid received letters signed by the U.S. President. Afterwards, Obama also voiced his opinion about Republicans and their stubbornness on national radio, and appealed to the nation on television.

It’s easy to explain Obama’s emergency parliamentary activity the week before Christmas. The support of 67 out of 100 senators is necessary to ratify the START treaty. There are currently 58 Democrats in the Senate. In other words, Obama needs support from nine Republicans. But after the New Year, the situation will be even worse. Due to the Senate’s partial renewal, the Democrats would need 14 more votes to ratify the START Treaty. Besides, it would be perfectly reasonable for the new senators to ask for additional time to review the treaty. That is, if the document is not ratified this year, the prospects for ratification in the next year are even more elusive.

The Democrats’ camp is calling such scenario an attempt by the Republicans to simply “kill” the START Treaty. Yet another “assassination attempt” was made last Saturday, when the Senate voted on the McCain-Barrasso amendment. Republicans tried to remove the relationship between strategic offensive and defensive weapons from the preamble of the treaty. Sen. John Barrasso stated, “Russia is trying to force the United States to choose between missile defense and the treaty. In that case I choose missile defense.” Democratic Senator John Kerry countered, “Our colleagues are fighting against a phantom. All of this argument they have been going on for several days with is about language that has no binding impact on this treaty whatsoever.” Kerry warned, “If you change it, it requires this treaty to go back to the Russian government.”

In his letter, Barack Obama very lucidly explained where this would lead. “Without a new treaty, we’ll risk turning back the progress we’ve made in our relationship with Russia,” he stated. He also reminded the senators that Washington now needs Moscow’s help, particularly to address the issues related to Afghanistan and the Iranian nuclear dossier. He added, “It’s about the safety and security of the United States of America.”

And this time he won. A Senate majority rejected the proposed amendment. However, for now it’s unclear what else the U.S. President will have to do in order for nine Republicans to vote with the Democrats before the New Year.