Nuclear Treaty With Russia Is Obama Mistake, Romney Writes in Wash. Post

President Barack Obama’s foreign- policy moves, including a new nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, were criticized as mistakes by former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a Washington Post opinion column today.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said the Senate shouldn’t ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, because it “impedes missile defense, our protection from nuclear-proliferating rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.”

Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the treaty in April and discussed how to obtain its ratification when the two leaders met in Washington last month.

The treaty doesn’t let the U.S. convert intercontinental ballistic missile silos into missile-defense facilities, Romney said. The agreement also lets the Russians break the treaty if they believe the U.S. has boosted its missile defenses.

The treaty’s terms are the latest failure of the Obama administration, Romney wrote. The president has criticized Israel while not confronting Hamas for launching 7,000 rockets from the Gaza strip, Romney said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington jbliss@bloomberg.net

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