I Spy A Treaty Delay

When the Russian spy ring story broke earlier this week, I asked what the political motive was in order to burn this ring right now. Who benefited from the timing of this and what was the motive?

Looks like we have our answer.

A U.S.-Russia arms treaty is teetering in the Senate, lacking support from Republicans and set back by an alleged spy ring.

The White House was hoping that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed three months ago by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would move quickly through the Senate. But now it may not get a vote on the floor until after the November elections.

The pact to reduce warheads, missiles and launchers in both countries could be cleared by the Foreign Relations Committee this month, but that timetable could also be pushed back.

While a simple majority is enough to pass it through the panel, 67 votes will be needed for ratification by the full Senate. The House does not vote on treaties.
Given the partisanship of the upper chamber and the midterm elections four months away, there is little chance of securing the vote of every Senate Democrat and the backing of least eight Republicans anytime soon.

Dingdingdingdingding!  Looks like some folks in the beltway wanted an excuse to scuttle Obama's START treaty.  Now, very conveniently they have just the perfect excuse to consider the Russians to be untrustworthy bastards.  Despite this spy ring being under surveillance by the feds for seven years, they were dragged out into the open now and done so for a reason.  I wondered what that reason was.

I'm not wondering anymore.  It's as plain as sunshine on your face.  Republicans couldn't scuttle the START treaty (and deny Obama a victory) without a bipartisan, centrist reason to do so.  If you think ratifying this will be any easier in January, I've got an old Russian spy manual to sell you too.

In hindsight, this was an obvious play and a well done one at that.