Tomorrow, December 5, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is set to expire. START, the largest arms control agreement in history, was spearheaded by Ronald Reagan and signed by George H.W. Bush in 1991 after a decade of negotiations. Yet that has not stopped some conservatives in the Senate, like Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), from attacking the Obama administration, saying that they do not have a “bridging agreement” ready should a follow-on treaty not be in place before the expiration date. Indeed, the Administration has declined to rush the negotiations in order to make sure that our security needs are met – while conservatives have played politics with the talks.

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It is the responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief to ask the tough questions and challenge our military and civilian bureaucracies to look past their own perspectives to provide the best answers.  Even as these important debates continue, prominent neoconservative pundits remain bent on blasting the Administration for ‘dithering’ on its strategy.  Not only does this reckless commentary ignore the complex reality of Afghanistan – one that can’t be reduced to an exclusive focus on troop numbers – but it runs against the emerging bi-partisan consensus that the President has behaved shrewdly in taking a deliberate approach to his strategy.  

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After a long impasse, Iraqi politics took a significant step forward on Sunday with the Iraqi parliament’s passage of a new election law.Resolution of the election issue underscores how moving forward in Iraq depends upon political decisions by Iraqi leaders, a point emphasized by President Obama in his speech at Camp Lejeune, when he stated that the “the long-term solution in Iraq must be political – not military.” While Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill will continue to prod Iraq’s political leaders to reconcile, such encouragement will only be effective as long as it occurs against the backdrop of U.S. withdrawal.

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Even as Iran reportedly responded negatively to a deal over its uranium enrichment program, a bipartisan and international consensus against it remains strong.  After years of division and uncertainty, for the first time there is clear international agreement that Iran must accept limits on its nuclear program.  American diplomatic leadership on this issue, absent for the past decade, has brought the world to the closest point it has been to beginning to rein in Iran’s nuclear program

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This afternoon, President Obama signs into law the first Defense Budget that matches the threats and security imperatives of the 21st century. As Secretary of Defense Gates has said, the military needs to fight today's battles, not yesterday's.  By signing this 21st century Defense Budget into law, President Obama is taking a major step forward in bringing our defense priorities in line with current threats. This is a major victory for the progressive national security agenda.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s efforts to rewrite the track record of his Administration reached a new level of absurdity yesterday. In one of the most bizarre attacks on President Obama yet, Cheney, as well as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), accused the President of “dithering” on Afghanistan.Furthermore, Cheney and Boehner’s calls for the Administration to rush more troops to Afghanistan without a clear partner government in place are irresponsible.

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After a week of intense international engagement, the administration’s top foreign policy officials hit the Sunday morning talk shows to discuss the difficult foreign policy decisions that lie ahead. Fareed Zakaria laid out the stakes for the Administration, taken together: “He wants to demonstrate at home that engagement does not make America weak.” This weekend, the President’s top advisors took on a number of serious issues: Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, the detention center at Guantanamo Bay – and confirmed that the Administration is moving forward with its core strategy of strength through engagement while carefully considering the implications of its policy decisions. On ABC’s ‘This Week’ Bob Woodward drew a contrast with the past: “As we all know from covering George W. Bush, all you had to do was find out what his gut was and then they would have meetings about how to implement what his gut was. In this case, I don’t think Obama has a gut, and he has opened the door very aggressively to other options, and they’re not going to be rushed.”

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Today, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak to the United Nations General Assembly. He will make predictably odious statements, and they will be seized upon by conservatives in the U.S. as evidence that the U.S. should abandon its policy of engaging the Iranian regime. These critics should be ignored. Conservatives who argue for abandoning engagement are stuck in the failed policies of the past: unilateral and unrealistic sanctions, useless saber-rattling, and wild notions of regime change. This stance defies the opinions of top military leaders and leading Iran experts. While the U.S. must be ready to deploy internationally backed pressure if needed, the best means forward with Iran is to stay committed to the policy of engagement.

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