Kerry and the Nuclear Utopians

[RadioPatrol]

Kerry and the Nuclear Utopians
by Peter Huessy

Liberals such as Sen. Barack Obama see Iran as no credible threat because our nuclear deterrent makes us immune -- in his opinion, not in fact -- to Iranian nuclear weapons. But he is no different from the junior Senator from Massachusetts and the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, John Forbes Kerry. Kerry, in an op-ed published June 25, 2008, says there is an emerging consensus about America’s nuclear policy. He claims both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are committed to a world without nuclear weapons and so, in Kerry’s mind, we should do away with our nuclear forces.

But Kerry, like many of the supporters of a world without nuclear weapons, engages in a slick slight of hand. He conflates the views of those such as Senator McCain -- and every President since Lyndon Johnson -- that the US eventually seeks a world without nuclear weapons, with his views and those of Senator Obama that the US will actually implement the first steps toward such a goal now. He further says that 17 former Secretary’s of State and Defense, (including former Secretaries of State George Schultz and Kissinger) also share this goal.

Not so fast, Senator. Kerry calls for no production of any nuclear weapons material and describes our weapons as on “hair trigger alert”, (they are not). He calls for many of our weapons to be de-alerted and that we should have a notional total force of no more than 1000 nuclear warheads, of which nearly half would not be available to deter on a day-to-day basis because they would be taken off “ready” status).

North Korea, Iran, Libya, Iraq and Syria have and are now pursuing nuclear weapons programs because they are regimes committed to blackmail, coercion, terror and murder. Two of these nations -- Iraq and Libya -- are no longer pursuing such weapons because of the successful policies of this administration. Syria’s initial nuclear facilities have been bombed away by our courageous friends and allies in Israel, not by the often misguided folks at the UN or the European Union at the headquarters of the various so-called “blame America always” and “pass an international test” critics of United States policy. Since when does standing up and defending our freedom depend upon the moral approval of Pyongyang and Tehran?

Senator Kerry eventually admits that our proper behavior “will not persuade rogue states to cooperate”. Of course it won’t Senator. We reduced our nuclear arsenals under the INF, START and SORT treaties by over 80% while you were supporting the nuclear freeze when the US and Russia arsenals each exceeded 10,000 warheads. Now we are on a path to a day to day deployed force of just slightly more than 1000 warheads, and a total force of 2200 warheads available for deterrence.

But somehow this considerably lower number -- lower than the nuclear enterprise we had at the end of the Eisenhower administration -- is not sufficient to win praise from the Senator and his colleagues. Ironically, even as we have dramatically reduced our stockpiles of weapons, the North Koreans have built new nuclear weapons and Iran is sprinting toward a similar capability according to your colleague Senator Jeff Sessions, one of the senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We set the example Senator. And the rogue states to whom you refer gave us the big “get lost”