Political Quotes

“I am not questioning the President's sincerity or his honesty or his current intentions. But nobody can predict the future. President Obama is smart, but he can't predict out into the future the kinds of things that could be implicated as a result of the agreements that are reached. To finish my point, the whole problem with this is that the Russians are attempting to create a ground for claiming the legal right, as both of us interpret the term in the treaty, to withdraw from the treaty. Why? For only one reason. It is not to create flexibility, as the Senator said. They have the flexibility. It is to create the pressure to apply on this President, or a future President, not to do what we may want to do because of the concern by the Russians as to how that will affect them. I don't think one can deny the significance and importance of that kind of diplomatic pressure. When we are asking the Russians to help us with the Iranians or North Korea or some other situation, they can say: That's fine except you are trying to do something we don't like in missile defense and then the President doesn't want to have them withdraw from the treaty and would like their cooperation on something else. These things matter. In the area of diplomacy, you cannot ignore words in a preamble, though it may not be legally binding. Even as my colleague says, they are so important they could be a treaty killer. Incidentally, I would like to correct something else. I think I am right on this issue.…”