Word: agreement
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When President Barack Obama pledged to move toward the abolition of nuclear weapons in April 2009, replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was supposed to be the easy first step. But the 1991 agreement, which limits the number of long-range nuclear weapons in Russia and the U.S., expired on Dec. 5. And a replacement has yet to be agreed upon...
Meanwhile, even if negotiators reach a START agreement, it will still require ratification in the U.S. Senate. And in a recent letter, 40 Republican Senators and independent Joe Lieberman suggested that they would not support the agreement unless Obama pledged to allocate money to "modernize" America's nuclear arsenal - that is to say, refurbish old warheads and potentially build new ones. That decision, in turn, hinges on the findings of Obama's "Nuclear Posture Review," in which the President will decide the nuclear forces he feels the U.S. needs to maintain in order to remain secure...
...with the median in Israeli politics having swung steadily to the right, the idea that Netanyahu might offer more than Barak and Olmert did is fanciful. It's not that Abbas is an obstinate man; he simply knows what it will take to sell any peace agreement to his skeptical public. Still, Abbas has staked his political career on negotiations, and that fact will probably prompt him to compromise in order to keep the process going, although not necessarily in order to conclude...
...foreign policy priority and has made it a centerpiece of the President's outreach to the Muslim world - which remains an important political component of the Administration's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and against al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Yemen. Although it failed to get Netanyahu's agreement to a complete settlement freeze, its leverage over Abbas may be sufficient to cajole him back to the table. But it's far from clear how the proposed two years of negotiations can bridge the gaps that remain after two decades of a peace process...
...Still, some form of negotiating process will probably resume in the weeks and months ahead - if for no other reason than the fact that none of the players would have their interests served by acknowledging that the process as currently defined may be unable to produce a peace agreement...