The United Nations General Assembly voted on Tuesday morning to approve the final text of the world’s first treaty regulating the trade of arms between countries, despite pressure from the National Rifle Association to have the United States kill the measure.

In passing the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) — with a vote of 154 in favor to 3 with 23 abstentions — the General Assembly has finally completed work that has gone on for years, including two rounds of strenuous negotiations, and two incomplete conferences. The latest attempt to pass the document via consensus was blocked at the last minute through the combined efforts of Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Following that setback, more than one hundred countries — including the United States — co-sponsored the ATT to move forward in the General Assembly, which is made up of all 193 members of the U.N., resulting in today’s vote.

The legal arms trade, comprised of both the import and export weapons, constitutes around $70 billion annually. Attack helicopters, tanks, and other larger arms are covered under the treaty, as well as small arms and ammunition for these weapons. Under the terms of the treaty, states are required to determine whether the shipment of arms to a second country would be used to commit atrocities or violate human rights or if they could diverted for such a purpose, and report back to the U.N. Secretariat on their efforts. Counter to the right-wing fear-mongering in the United States, primacy of national legislation is recognized in the treaty, forgoing any possibility of a government “gun grab.”

It’s not clear, however, that President Obama would sign the newly passed treaty right away or even in the next few months. In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, the principal U.S. negotiator of the ATT Thomas Countryman demurred:

COUNTRYMAN: For any treaty the United States carefully studies it. It’s looked at from all angles by many different agencies, and any statements of clarification about how we interpret the treaty or how we will implement it are prepared before the President is asked to give his signature. That takes, even for a treaty simpler than this one, usually a few months. I’m reluctant to give any specific timeframe. I can only say that as with any other treaty, it will get a careful review by every relevant agency of the U.S. Government before it goes to the President for signature.

That pledge of careful consideration hasn’t done anything to lessen NRA opposition. On Friday the NRA’s action wing referred to the ATT as an “undead” treaty and denigrated the American Bar Association’s conclusion that the ATT will not adversely affect gun-ownership in the United States.

The ATT is already facing heavy opposition in the U.S. Congress, including the efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) to pass a concurrent resolution to keep President Obama from signing the text. But given that Democrats hold the majority in Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, it is unlikely Moran’s resolution will pass. Unfortunately, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) did manage to slip an item into the FY 2014 Budget that would create a fund to block implementation of the ATT.

Progressive foreign policy group the Truman National Security Project today released a new ad that features several 9/11-era veterans questioning whether Mitt Romney is qualified to be commander-in-chief.

The one minute video first highlights Romney’s various foreign policy fumbles throughout the campaign, including his confusing Afghanistan policy, his failure to mention the war there and commemorate U.S. troops in his RNC speech, and his campaign’s reluctance to talk about national security. “You have shown us from London to Libya that you are over your head,” an Army vet says, with the ad closing with three other vets saying they don’t trust Romney to lead the military. Watch it:

Apart from Romney’s foreign policy missteps, veterans should have cause for concern. Romney hasn’t laid out any concrete plan for how he would tackle veteran unemployment or any other issues the nation’s military members face after serving in war.

Drew Sloan, a West Point graduate who served combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, appeared in the ad and spoke at the Truman Project’s launch event. “Neither of us really want to make this kind of video,” Sloan said, referring to a fellow vet that also took part in the project. But, Sloan added, “Mitt Romney is not qualified to be commander-in-chief,” citing the fact that Romney appeared to go to great lengths to avoid service in Vietnam in the 1960s and has now surrounded himself with those who took the United States to war in Iraq.

“The ad will run on television in Ohio – a key battleground state in the Presidential election – starting today,” said a Truman statement, adding that it “is part of a significant buy which will also run online in Florida, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Ohio.”

An adviser to Mitt Romney referred to foreign policy as a “distraction” in this year’s presidential election. While President Obama’s campaign continues to focus on the administration’s foreign policy successes and the lack of national security experience from the Romney ticket, Romney aide Robert O’Brien accused the Obama campaign of “going from one shiny object to the next:”

The Romney campaign, however, doesn’t think national security is a winning issue for Obama.

Romney foreign policy advisor Robert O’Brien called the Obama campaign’s tactic a transparent ploy to distract from the sagging economy, including a recent jobs report that was “a disaster for them.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that they’re raising foreign policy because it’s another distraction from the Administration’s terrible economic record,” O’Brien told BuzzFeed. “They’re going from one shiny object to the next.”

Romney has received widespread criticism — even from leading Republicans — for ignoring U.S. troops and the war in Afghanistan in his speech to the Republican National Convention.

But O’Brien’s claim that foreign policy is a distraction squares with a wider theme of Romney’s campaign. Another adviser told the New York Times back in May that “Romney doesn’t want to really engage these issues until he is in office.” While it seems clear that the so-called “Cheney-ites” are running things behind the scenes, Romney has avoided much public discussion of foreign policy. Even his own advisers and supporters have no idea what Romney’s foreign policy is and his recent foreign trip that was supposed to be a slam dunk in beefing up his security bona fides bombed, spawning the not-so-flattering moniker “Romney Shambles.”

Mitt Romney’s speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday night was riddled with misleading claims and critical omissions. In no section was this more true than Romney’s discussion of foreign policy. The GOP presidential nominee devoted only 202 words to national security and while his speech completely ignored the war in Afghanistan and any homage to American servicemembers, it contained a shocking number of misstatements and false and baseless attacks on President Obama:

1. Obama and America: “I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.”

THE FACTS: The notion that Obama went on an “apology tour” has been repeatedly and conclusively debunked, though it remains a staple of Romney’s post-truth campaign. The “dictated” line is likely of a similar provenance, but there’s an irony to the second half of that sentence — Obama has “freed other nations from dictators,” as he helped form and lead an international coalition that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Romney’s position on the Libya intervention, by contrast, was something of an incoherent muddle.

2. Iran: “Every American was relieved the day President Obama gave the order, and Seal Team Six took out Osama bin Laden. But on another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran’s nuclear threat. In his first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran. We’re still talking, and Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning.”

THE FACTS: There’s a reason the President decided to talk to Iran — the Obama administration is quite aware of the consequences of a nuclear weapons-equipped Iran, if its leaders decide to go that route, and has determined that diplomacy presents the “best and most permanent” means of resolving the crisis. Moreover, the diplomatic approach has produced concrete dividends. While Iran hasn’t capitulated, signalling that America was willing to talk to Iran helped build international support for significantly stepped-up sanctions. Contra Romney, the new sanctions imposed by Obama’s coalition have unequivocally slowed Iran’s nuclear progress by limiting its ability to acquire critical materiel, according to the U.N. and the Pentagon. Perhaps that’s why, when they’re not hinting at starting a devastating war, Romney advisers and surrogates have been unable to differentiate their candidate’s policy from the status quo.

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New polls out today show President Obama comfortably leading Mitt Romney in the presidential race, but it looks like in the wake of Romney’s disastrous trip abroad last month (also known as “Romney Shambles“), Americans trust the president more on foreign policy and national security issues, particularly regarding Iran.

A Fox News poll released yesterday, which has Obama leading Romney 49 to 40 percent among registered voters, finds that more trust Obama over Romney to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Voters also prefer Obama over Romney on foreign policy 51 to 38 percent (an increase of two points for Obama since Fox’s last poll) and on national security 48 to 40 percent:

And a new Ipsos/Reuters poll similarly found a jump in support for Obama on foreign policy and handling terrorism. Fifty-one percent of those polled favor Obama to Romney’s 35 percent on foreign policy, a four point increase for Obama since Ipsos’s last poll. While Obama still leads Romney on national security 47 to 38 percent, that gap was closed slightly. However, on the so-called “war on terror,” Obama leads Romney 52 to 33 percent, a slight increase from the last poll:

Romney’s advisers dispute that his recent trip abroad has anything to do with his declining polling numbers. “The impact of the European trip is negligible,” an unnamed adviser said. “Mark my words, there will be another couple of polls next week that potentially say something different.”

The theme of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy this campaign season is disarray. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Reuters all published reports about the infighting among Romney’s foreign policy team and how the candidate is struggling to find any way to publicly differentiate himself from President Obama and keep the mask on his advisers’ agendas.

Today, the Washington Post has the latest profile of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s foreign policy troubles, reporting that Romney’s advisers acknowledge “that they need to sharpen their message and its delivery,” particularly given Romney’s disastrous trip to England, Poland and Israel last week:

Critics on the inside are largely supportive of those positions but remain skeptical of the campaign’s ability to project a sophisticated, substantive vision that is not mired in past and current ideological battles.

“They have this theory of the campaign and have been on auto­pilot with it and haven’t adjusted,” said one exasperated Republican foreign policy expert with strong conservative credentials. “It’s all about attacking Obama, when the bigger job is to introduce himself.” The decision to visit Poland, where Romney hailed the end of Soviet communism and the success of democracy and a free market, made the campaign “look like Rip Van Winkle and they think it’s 1989,” he said.

Indeed, Romney has demonstrated his “Cold War mindset” in a number of ways, from calling Russia America’s “number one geopolitical foe” to planning on boosting the U.S. military budget well beyond what the Pentagon spent at any time during the last 60 years. Even some of Romney’s own top advisers talk like the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia are still around.

But as the Post report confirms (again), divisions within Romney’s foreign policy team are still prevalent, particularly between the neocons and hawks on one side (“Cheney-ites” and the so-called “John Bolton faction“) and the George H.W. Bush era moderates on the other (the “Cheney-ites” are reportedly winning):

People who are “wigged out” by Bolton are “overstating his involvement” in the campaign, said one senior adviser. But Bolton is seen as a useful spokesman to the far right who can articulately expound Romney’s virtues and offer the conservative red meat others might shy away from.

Indeed, Bolton recently cheered Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) anti-Muslim witch hunt to root out alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government — something many top Republicans have denounced. Given the chance to take a swipe at Bachmann’s Islamophobia, Romney took a pass.