Yesterday, Secretary Clinton called out the Senate GOP on their efforts to obstruct or delay the New START treaty. She noted that this obstructionist effort has real national security consequences:

This is a critical point. Opposing ratification means opposing the inspections that provide us a vital window into Russia’s arsenal… when the Senate returns, they must act, because our national security is at risk. There is an urgency to ratify this treaty because we currently lack verification measures with Russia which only hurts our national security interests. Our ability to know and understand changes in Russia’s nuclear arsenal will erode without the treaty. As time passes, uncertainty will increase. With uncertainty comes unpredictability, which, when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons, is absolutely a problem that must be addressed. Ratifying the new START treaty will prevent that outcome.

If Senate Republicans are concerned about Russian intentions, as they claim, then they should vote for — not against — this treaty. This is because without a New START treaty in place our military will have no idea what the Russians are doing with their nuclear arsenal. Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association notes that:

For 250 days since START I expired there has been no verification system in place… Until New START is approved by the Senate, the United States will rapidly lose insight into Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, forcing both sides to engage in more costly force modernization and hedging strategies.

This loss of intelligence and confidence is critical. With both the US and Russia having nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert and able to destroy all major cities and kill millions of people in 30 minutes, it is an extremely bad idea to have a situation in which both sides become uncertain about the nuclear intentions of the other. On top of that it is also clear that relations with Russia will plummet if START is not ratified. The reset will be collapse and as both militaries lose confidence in their intelligence of the other, skepticism about intentions and motives will only increase. If the GOP kills new START it will quite likely put US-Russia relations on an increasingly dangerous downward spiral.

We don’t worry about nuclear war very much anymore, but should this treaty fail to be ratified the chances of the unthinkable happening — intentionally or accidentally — increase. Now this doesn’t mean that nuclear war is inevitable or even likely. But extremely unlikely events happen all the time. No one would have predicted that the biggest story of the year would be a massive oil spill in the Gulf. This point clearly comes across in the new documentary film Countdown to Zero:

Now it says something about the myopic recklessness of Senators like Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and Bob Corker who are willing to endanger nuclear stability and US national security just to either deny President Obama a “victory” or to get more nuclear pork for their home state.

Whenever conservative pundits start mooning over Winston Churchill, which is often, it’s a good bet that they’re getting ready to insist that America must “get serious” about something or other, “getting serious” usually translating as “blow something up.” So it is with George F. Will, whose piece today is the latest entry in the “Obama must get tough on Iran” campaign that went into high gear with the release of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article.

Granted an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Will notes that Netanyahu keeps a photograph of Winston Churchill in his office. Will thinks this is very significant:

Netanyahu, his focus firmly on Iran, honors Churchill because he did not flinch from facts about gathering storms. Obama returned to the British Embassy in Washington the bust of Churchill that was in the Oval Office when he got there.

Will doesn’t bother to explain what these “facts” about Iran actually are, but that’s not the point. The point is that Netanyahu doesn’t flinch! Even when refusing to honor Israel’s past commitments to the United States, something that really bothers conservatives when other countries do it. But, apparently for Will, scoring points on President Obama with the most overused and uncreative historical analogy in the canon is more important than protecting American credibility against recalcitrant client states.

As for the right’s ongoing love affair with Churchill, you’ll excuse me for quoting from a May 2008 piece in which I noted that, for conservative ideology to function properly, “it must always be 1938, the storm must always be gathering. There must always be new Hitlers to confront”:

But what if we discarded the facile conservative equation of “national security” with “the willingness to use force,” understanding that real national security involves having the judgment to know when and how to use force productively? Let’s grant for the moment President Bush’s contention that Iran is the new Nazi Germany. Given the fact that the policies of George Bush have done so much to empower the Nazis in Europe … oops, I mean Iran in the Middle East, it’s clear that in this interpretation, the role of Neville Chamberlain is played by George Bush. [...]

Bush and his allies presented the invasion of Iraq as the act of a Churchill, a bold and heroic (so heroic!) thrust at the heart of tyranny. Five years later, a strong consensus regards the Iraq invasion as a feckless and impetuous blunder based on a serious misapprehension of the region and a total lack of appreciation of the potential consequences. It was the act of a Chamberlain.

Just as Churchill had to deal with the consequences of Chamberlain’s misjudgment of the historical moment, so Obama continues to wrestle with problems created and exacerbated by the incompetence of his predecessor, George W. Bush. It is no small irony that Bush and his bungling enablers imagined themselves to be Churchill’s heirs.

Hopefully, Obama will have the wisdom to ignore such facile comparisons as Will’s, which are intended to pressure him into a more belligerent posture toward Iran — a posture from which his critics, of course, intend to make it impossible for him to climb down. At the very least, though, isn’t it time to find some other historical figures to lazily misapply to current debates (I’m sure Victor Davis Hanson could be a huge help here), and give poor Winston a rest?

Finally, a note: In place of Churchill’s bust, the Oval Office now has Martin Luther King, Jr’s. Will should consider whether that’s a trade that bothers him, and why.

Over the past year, the Chamber of Commerce has been pretty silent in the immigration debate. Most notably, the powerful business group was absent from the coalition of Latino, labor, faith, and advocacy groups that fought an uphill battle this year under the umbrella of the Reform Immigration for America campaign to get comprehensive immigration reform on the table in 2010. However, this week the Chamber spoke out on two issues: the $600 million border bill and high-skilled immigrant labor.

Yesterday, officials from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Council on International Personnel blasted the recently approved $600 million border bill that would be paid for by an increase the work-visa fees foreign companies must pay if they have more than 50 employees in their U.S. operations and hire more than half their workforce using H-1B or L-1 visas. The Chamber’s senior vice president for labor, Randel Johnson, called the provision “an easy political shot.” Ron Somers, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, was similarly inflamed. “We urge the Congress and the Obama administration to amend this new funding method for border security and any policies that would harm America’s economic interest and undermine the burgeoning economic, trade and strategic relationship with India,” stated Somers.

Looking to the future, the Chamber also released a report yesterday calling on Congress to reform the H1-B high-skilled labor visa system to “let business and economic needs determine the composition of an employer’s workforce, not an arbitrary quota, lottery or commission.” The Chamber argues, “the best policy would ease the way for employers to sponsor high skilled individuals for green cards by exempting from labor certification and current employment- based immigrant quotas many who now languish in 6 to 20 year queues.” The Chambers calls for “let[ting] market decide on the number of new skilled foreign nationals who work in America each year” and sharply criticizes the position of labor groups which believe an independent commission of experts, modeled after the International Trade Commission, should regularly recommend and update visa quotas in response to the nation’s economic and labor needs.

Ultimately, labor groups understandably oppose “letting the market decide” because experience has shown that often boils down to what making businesses more profitable — which isn’t necessarily synonymous with what’s good for American workers. They claim “broader decisions about immigration policy should not be delegated to employers, who cannot be relied upon to protect the best interests of workers or the nation” and that a labor commission would take a more holistic approach, examining “the impact of immigration on the economy, wages, the workforce and business.” The idea of an independent commission has been endorsed by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Migration Policy Institute, which argues that “managing immigration in the national interest requires a[n]…institutional capacity to monitor and analyze information as the basis for making changes.”

However, labor and business appear to agree on one thing: on its own, the $600 million border bill won’t solve any of these issues and will do little to fix the nation’s broken immigration system.

Our guest blogger is Rebecca Lefton, of CAP’s Progressive Media.

Months after the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, BP is delaying deepwater drilling off the coast of Libya and exploratory drilling off of the Scottish Shetland islands. The delays also reflect the political pressure BP faces because of its lobbying efforts “over the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya that led to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.” Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is planning to send members to the UK and Scotland to question witnesses on the role of BP in the release of the Lockerbie bomber. This development follows the postponement of a Senate Foreign Relations hearing because the witnesses declined to show.

As we recently reported, 2010 lobbying disclosures reveal that Big Oil is influencing foreign policy by lobbying on the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act as it is debated in the Senate. But this is not anything new. The oil industry and related trade associations have been lobbying to secure their bottom lines by risking our national safety for decades, including advocating for the removal of sanctions against oil-rich countries Iran and Libya.

Big Oil Fights Libyan Sanctions

The U.S. imposed unilateral sanctions in 1986 that froze Libyan assets, and banned all trade and financial dealings with the country. Following the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988 when a Libyan bomb exploded Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York killing 270 people, Congress passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) in 1996. The act was intended to limit the flow of revenues that could be used to finance terrorist actions or obtain weapons of mass destruction, and to put pressure on Libya to comply with UN resolutions that included extraditing for trial those involved with the Lockerbie bombing.

Dick Cheney, then a former secretary of defense, worked hand in hand with oil companies to pursue the removal of sanctions against Iran and Libya, which they argued hurt business. In June, 1998, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, said in a speech at the Cato Institute:

Our government has become sanctions-happy.

Working closely with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and front group USA* Engage, Cheney lobbied to lift sanctions against Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Burma, Nigeria, India and Pakistan during his tenure at Halliburton which lasted from 1995 to 2000 before joining the White House as George W. Bush’s vice president.

USA*Engage, Halliburton, and Conoco

USA*Engage is a coalition front group opposing unilateral sanctions made up of more than 400 — and at that point more than 670 — companies, trade associations and other organizations from all sectors of the U.S. economy. Halliburton was a principal member of USA*Engage, whose members also included oil giants Conoco, Mobil, and Texaco. USA*Engage and Halliburton shared lobbyist Don Deline, vice president for government affairs at Halliburton. Deline served as Chair of USA*Engage from 2000 until June 2003 when he was replaced by Robert W. Haines, then Manager of International Relations for Exxon Mobil.

Conoco has been a strong supporter of USA*Engage, and is also a member of the Iranian Trade Association, an organization formed in 1997 opposing U.S. sanctions against Iran. According to The New York Times, Conoco “led the effort to repeal the Iran-Libyan Sanctions Act, which prohibits American companies from investing in those countries, paving the way for European and Asian oil conglomerates to develop some of the best oil and gas fields in the world.” The Times points out that Conoco had a long history of doing business in Libya, pumping 500,000 barrels of oil a day for 47 years until sanctions were imposed under Reagan in 1986. The company’s strategy also looked to Iran for its offshore gas deposits.

Dick Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force

As one of his first acts in office, President Bush appointed Cheney to take the lead in crafting a new energy policy for the United States. Cheney created a secret energy task force that was strongly represented by the oil industry and its trade association representatives, including BP, Shell, Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute. Archie Dunham, then CEO of Conoco and board member of API, met with Cheney on March 21, 2001 while the energy task force was crafting its report.

An April draft of the energy task force report included language that would lift sanctions against Iraq, Iran, and Libya to advance “energy security” through increased production of oil resources in these countries. The final National Energy Policy Report did not refer specifically to these three countries. However, it did include a recommendation that the President direct the Secretaries of State, Treasury and Commerce to review and reform sanctions factoring in “energy security.” API said it was disappointed the report did not specifically recommend easing sanctions against Iran and Libya. Nonetheless, the report reflected the influence of the oil industry-based task force with its emphasis on “energy security” — that is, access to international oil and gas resources in unstable regions — stating:

Energy security must be a priority of U.S. trade and foreign policy.

At the same time, Congress was in a heated debate about whether or not to renew ILSA for five more years, which was being fueled by the oil industry’s push to block its reauthorization. Dunham was a witness before Congress in May, 2001 opposing the extension of ILSA. As the sunset period for ILSA approached, Bush was walking a fine line over the White House’s position on the sanctions, in part because Bush did not “want to look like a puppet of Big Oil” but oil companies would become enraged if the administration were to support renewal. In a seeming compromise, the Bush administration pushed Congress to limit the extension to only two years instead of five, “once the administration completes reviews of Iran policy and the overall use of sanctions.” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), who introduced the bill to renew the law, said:

I hope that the president hears our message and puts to rest the idea that ILSA might expire or be weakened because ILSA has been one of the best weapons our country has had in our war against terrorism, because it’s aimed at cutting off the flow of money that terrorist groups depend on to fund their attacks and operations.

Despite Cheney’s efforts on behalf of Big Oil, that August Congress voted overwhelmingly to extend the sanctions for another five years.

The timeline below is a glimpse of the engagement of Big Oil in the national security dialogue and the role of key players like former Vice President Dick Cheney in influencing the debate: Read more