US Senate ratifies landmark nuclear treaty with Russia

The US Senate yesterday ratified a landmark nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, handing President Barack Obama a signal diplomatic and political victory after a months-long battle.

Lawmakers voted 71-26 in favour of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), easily clearing the two-thirds majority needed to approve the pact, which Obama had made a lynchpin of efforts to “reset” relations with Moscow.

He also signed a historic law to enable gays to serve openly in the US military for the first time in history, another unlikely triumph in the waning days of his Democratic allies’ control over the polarized Congress.

A Republican romp in November 2 elections means the White House’s foes, who battled tooth and nail to stall both Presidential priorities, will control the House of Representatives and have a more robust Senate minority come January.

Overturning the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise that allowed gays to serve if they kept their sexuality secret, was a cherished goal of liberals but conservatives fought a tough campaign to keep it in place.

“We are not a nation that says ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ We are a nation that says, ‘Out of many, we are one’,” Mr Obama said in a euphoric ceremony at the Interior Department in Washington.

“We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot,” he said, as euphoric activists celebrated the onset of the most sweeping social change in the US military in decades after a years-long campaign.

Mr Obama also savoured Senate approval of the START treaty, which restricts the former Cold War foes to a maximum of 1,550 deployed warheads each, a cut of about 30 per cent from a limit set in 2002, and 800 launchers and bombers.

The treaty, which must still be ratified by Russia’s parliament, would resume mutual on-the-ground inspections of nuclear facilities, which lapsed when the accord’s predecessor expired in December 2009.

After a relentless courtship by Mr Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and top US military commanders, 13 Republicans backed the treaty, bucking leaders eager to hand the president a major defeat, and no Democrats broke ranks.

“I am confident that our nation’s security, and that of the world, will be enhanced by ratifying this treaty,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, the accord’s chief Democratic patron in Congress.