WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2010


A treaty that will improve our security


by John F. Kerry


too important to be treated as fodder for po- litical posturing. Sadly, former governor Mitt Romney failed that test in arguing that rati- fication of the New Strategic Arms Reduc- tion Treaty (New START) with Russia would be a mistake [op-ed, July 6]. He disregarded the views of the best foreign policy thinkers of the past half-century, but more important, he ignored the facts. No threat to our national security is great- er than the danger from nuclear weapons. Responsible political figures across the spec- trum need to support every step possible to control the spread of nuclear weapons. New START is one of those steps. This view is shared by most who have taken the time to understand the treaty and the international context in which it was negotiated. Rather than pander to politics, we need to ratify this agreement quickly. Every day without its verification regime is a day without a clear view of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. From the first Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in April, Richard Lugar, the panel’s ranking Republican, and I have made clear that there is no room in this de- bate for domestic politics. Serious people may differ over elements of the agreement, but after 10 hearings we have produced a public record that makes the case for ratifi- cation and rejects the narrow, uninformed political objections advanced by Romney. Let’s examine the key objections: Romney


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says that New START impedes our ability to build missile defenses against attack from rogue countries. This is a myth. The treaty will have no impact on our ability to build ballistic missile defenses against Iran, North Korea or other threats from other regions. The Obama administration is free to proceed with missile defense plans it announced last year.


New START won’t impede our ability to build missile defenses against attack from rogue nations.


Like others unfamiliar with previous arms control agreements, Romney warns that Russia could use language in the treaty’s pre- amble as a pretext for withdrawal if the Unit- ed States builds up its missile defense. In a word, baloney. The preamble is not legally binding. Every arms control treaty since the Kennedy administration has allowed either party to withdraw if it felt its national inter- ests were jeopardized. Surely Romney would not want to give up that right. Similarly, Romney is flat wrong in claim-


ing that the Bilateral Consultative Commis- sion is broadly empowered to amend the treaty with regard to missile defense. The language is clear that any amendment pro- posed by the commission would have to be ratified just like a new treaty. Another red herring is the notion that the


treaty allows Russia to escape limits on the number of strategic nuclear warheads. The same limits apply to the United States and Russia, including the ability to count each nuclear-equipped heavy bomber as a single warhead. The new treaty’s approach to counting bomber weapons is consistent with the strategic relations between the United States and Russia and works to our advan- tage because our fleet has a great nuclear- weapons capacity. Romney’s claim that Russia can mount an unlimited number of intercontinental ballis- tic missiles (ICBMs) on bombers is a stra- tegic concept that was rejected in the 1960s because submarine-launched missiles were deemed far more effective. If Russia were foolish enough to pursue this path, we could either get the new weapons incorporated in the treaty or withdraw. His argument that the treaty abandons limits on multiple inde- pendently targeted reentry vehicles, known as MIRVs, is equally flawed; the Bush admin- istration decided it did not care what mis- siles Russia retained when it negotiated the 2002 Moscow Treaty. Similarly, concerns about restrictions on converting launchers for ICBMs and those launched from subma- rines for missile defense purposes are mis- placed because those conversions would be more expensive and less effective than alter- natives and thus unnecessary. New START will not constrain our ability


to defend ourselves. On the contrary, it will improve our national security by reducing the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia, and by improving relations with our old adversary. Ratification will also show the international community that we are honoring our commitments on nonproliferation. Many of the strongest voices for ratifica- tion are Republican. Henry Kissinger, na- tional security adviser and secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, testified in May that the Senate should ratify the accord. He objected to injecting politics into such a momentous decision, saying, “It is, by definition, not a bipartisan, but a nonpartisan, challenge.” I have nothing against Massachusetts politicians running for president. But the world’s most important elected office carries responsibilities, including the duty to check your facts even if you’re in a footrace to the right against Sarah Palin. More than that, you need to understand that when it comes to nuclear danger, the nation’s security is more important than scoring cheap political points.


The writer, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.


ven in these polarized times, anyone seeking the presidency should know that the security of the United States is


KLMNO


K R


A15 RUTH MARCUS


easy, “Call me Rich” — comes armed with charts. His first one is, literally, in shades of gray. Its message is any- thing but.


A tax too steep R


ich Trumka — the AFL-CIO president intercepts any at- tempted honorific with an


Once, its bar graphs report, the middle class and the wealthy pros- pered in tandem. Between 1947 and 1973, the rich got richer, but the not- so-rich actually prospered more. The household income of the mid- dle 20 percent of Americans nearly doubled, while the income of the top 20 percent of Americans rose the least of any group, 85 percent. After 1973, the story changes dra-


AMAZON.COM VIA BLOOMBERG NEWS KATHLEEN PARKER The hard truth How human touch influences our emotions S


ometimes it takes a scientific study to reveal the obvious. The latest dis- covery — that touch influences how we perceive things — is something like the warning on a steaming cup of coffee. Just as everyone knows that spilling hot liquid on one’s lap will produce a burning sensation, everyone knows that tactile sensations convey information about the object or person being touched. The question is: How do we interpret this information? And what actions might we take in response? Joshua M. Ackerman at the Massachu-


setts Institute of Technology sought to an- swer those questions through a series of psychological experiments. He concluded that an object’s texture, hardness and weight influence our judgments and decisions.


Again, the obvious: Weight conveys im-


portance (“weighty issues”) and hardness is associated with rigidity. At last we un- derstand the church pew. Despite the foregoneness of these find- ings, the implications are significant. How we literally feel things can influence everything from our choices when voting to spending money and interacting with others. In one experiment, for example, Acker-


man gave 54 volunteers clipboards with a job applicant’s résumé attached. Those holding the heavier clipboards rated the candidate more highly, deducing that the applicant was more serious. In another experiment, volunteers were asked to complete a puzzle with pieces that were either smooth or sandpa- per rough, after which they read a tran- script of a social encounter. Guess who in- terpreted the interaction as more adver- sarial? This rough interpretation also affected subsequent decision making, with the sandpaper group more inclined toward tough negotiation. Apparently, we don’t have to touch things only with our hands to get a feel for something. Our posteriors are equally receptive to hard-soft messaging. Hence the chair experiment, in which subjects were asked to make offers on a car. The dealer would refuse the first offer and a second offer immediately followed. Those sitting on hard chairs made low- er second offers than those sitting on soft- er chairs. We might extrapolate to our hearts’ content, but it seems wise that those wishing to preserve their virtue in the dating world might avoid the down cush- ion. And why not make those United Na-


tions chairs a little comfier? Might we begin exporting Barcaloungers to the Middle East?


Such musings led my meandering mind to the subject of books and other dead-tree reading products in the digi- tal age. I belong to that subgroup of in- dividuals who smell a book before read- ing. (If you are not a book-smeller, we have nothing further to discuss.) The tactile experience of reading is also crucial to my reading pleasure. Holding a book compares to nothing short of a baby’s contact with his favor- ite blankie. Consistent with Ackerman’s findings, a hardback is superior to a paperback precisely because it is more solid, weightier and, therefore, more permanent, more important, better. But might touching words on a printed page vs. reading them online also be relevant to one’s comprehension and judgment? Are words consigned to tangible and tactually rewarding paper more likely to register in our minds than those that float on hard tablets subject to the blinkering life span of a battery or extinguishable by a bolt of lightning? Admit it: You print out the stories you really want to study. Think, too, how dif- ferently we consider a handwritten let- ter vs. an e-mail. Even an e-mail printed out seems more important — more con- crete — than what we view on the screen. It is, alas, more human. Part of the pleasure of a real, snail-


mail letter isn’t only the effort involved in putting words to parchment but also the fact of the letter writer having touched the same piece of paper. The exchange isn’t only an act of communi- cation but one of intimacy. We are all part of this immense digi-


tal experiment and we know not where it leads. But the tactile vacuum inherent in the medium can’t be insignificant. Offhand, it seems that our technologi- cally enhanced communications, though miraculous in speed and access, have become harder and rougher with the medium.


Reaching out and touching someone has become easier than ever, but we never really make contact. Hunkered over our keyboards, tapping and click- ing messages to the vast Other, we have become a universe of lone rangers keep- ing the company of our own certitude. Perhaps what the world needs now is


a kinder, softer desk chair. kathleenparker@washpost.com


matically. Income for the middle group inched up, rising 24 percent through 2006. But the top 20 per- cent grew at nearly three times that rate. This graphic depiction of income inequality is, understandably enough, at the center of Trumka’s worldview, a perspective that be- came clear when he came to lunch last week at The Post. Growing in- come inequality is troubling. It would be troubling in the absence of a budget crisis. But that does not mean, as Trumka would have it, that the solution to the nation’s fiscal woes is always, or only, reducing in- come inequality. In short, soaking the rich gets you only so far. Take, for example, what Trumka


calls “the current deficit hysteria” and its cousin, entitlement spend- ing. “We don’t have an entitlement problem,” Trumka says. “We have a revenue problem.” In the world ac- cording to Trumka, no benefits need be cut, no retirement ages adjusted. Simply requiring the rich to pay a fairer share would bridge the gap. I’m all for a more progressive tax code. But consider: The Tax Policy Center examinedwhat it would take to avoid raising taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year while reducing the deficit to 3 per- cent of the economy by decade’s end. The top two rates would have to rise to 72.4 and 76.8 percent, more than double the current level. You don’t have to be anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist to think this would be insane. Or ask Trumka about whether the eligibility age for Social Security, now 62 for partial benefits, should be raised. This former coal miner — and son and grandson of coal min- ers — erupts. His father worked 44 years in the mines, suffering from


MICHAEL GERSON


t is a rare and frightening gift for someone to glimpse an alternate fate in another life. On the same day that Wes Moore was reading an article in the Balti- more Sun about his receipt of a Rhodes scholarship, he also read an article about an unrelated Wes Moore arrested for murder. Both Wes Moores shared Baltimore roots and similar stories of poverty and father absence. One graduated from college and became a White House Fellow; the other will spend the rest of his life at the Jessup Cor- rectional Institution. Wes Moore contacted his name-


POST PARTISAN


Excerpts from The Post’s opinion blog, updated daily at washingtonpost.com/postpartisan


DAVID IGNATIUS


Iraq moves closer to a new government


The formation of a new Iraqi government is proving as complicated as solving a Rubik’s Cube, but at least Vice President Biden has a better sense of how the pieces might fit togeth- er. Biden spent the July 4 weekend in Iraq, meeting with nearly all that country’s major power brokers. It was the most active U.S. in- volvement in Iraqi politics since the Obama ad- ministration took office. While it didn’t pro- duce any breakthroughs, it gave a useful nudge to the Iraqis — and reminded all sides that the United States has continuing interests there. Biden brought two messages to all the Iraqi factions, a source said. First, “We have a long- term commitment. We are not disengaging. The nature of this commitment is changing from military involvement, but we’re not going away.” This was “well received by everyone,” the aide said.


Second, Biden told the Iraqis, “We’re not meddling in government formation, and we think you should resist meddling by anyone else,” such as Iran and other neighbors. “But if you want us to be helpful, we’re all ears.” Biden came away hopeful that the political


haggling may be accelerated by the July 14 con- stitutional deadline for naming a new speaker of parliament. Like everything else in Iraq, that rule can be fiddled with — but it does seem to have concentrated politicians’ minds. And they are not likely to name a speaker until the other


key positions have been assigned. Another factor accelerating the process is


that the holdover prime minister, Nouri al- Maliki, seems to have decided that the waiting game he has been playing may not work in his favor any longer. Maliki and his Shiite “State of Law” party finished second in the March vot- ing to former prime minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition, a secular group that was strongly backed by Iraqi Sunnis. Maliki’s problem as incumbent is that he


gets blamed for Iraq’s everyday problems — in- cluding electricity shortages this summer that produced protests organized by some of the Shiite factions that Maliki needs to form a gov- erning coalition. This Shiite unhappiness with Maliki is said to be pushing him toward a pos- sible deal with Allawi. The two factions have held intensive meetings over the past week. It’s not clear who would be prime minister if such a deal could be hatched. But the United States, which has worked reasonably well with both, would be pleased with that outcome. The alliance of Kurds, who hold the swing vote, is said to be insisting that it hold on to the presidency. The Iranians are fighting to keep in power some version of the Shiite coalition that rules the country, in the expectation that it would be pliable to Iranian demands. But many Shiite politicians have shown increasing willingness to buck Tehran’s tutelage — at least during this long period of political jockeying since the March election. The Saudis and the Turks favor Allawi. The Saudis in particular are resistant to the idea of another term for Maliki — and would probably prefer almost anyone else.


sake in prison out of what he calls “pure curiosity.” The result is a book, “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates,” that illuminates the roles of disadvantage, privilege and personal responsibility in shap- ing a life. Both Wes Moores emerge as bright, energetic boys facing be- trayals they did not deserve and temptations they did not resist. The author Moore vividly describes a circa 1990 urban world flooded by crack, set to a hip-hop soundtrack and ruled by a violent, lawless con- ception of male honor. The lure of crime is indistinguishable from the appeal of entrepreneurship; the profits of the drug trade are limited only by the hours a teen is willing to spend on the street. It is a world of public schools that reward disrup- tion with attention, of unrealistic expectations of sports and music stardom, of public housing projects nicknamed “Murder Homes.” Both Wes Moores end up hand-


cuffed in the back of police cars. Both receive second chances. Only one robs a jewelry store and kills an off-duty police officer who had five children. The author Moore admirably re- fuses to draw simplistic, self- serving comparisons. He admits a broad role for luck, fate and person- ality. But the two stories, for all their variations, have a clear theme: the importance of parental influ- ence and the desperate search for substitutes when that influence is absent.


Both boys had caring, single mothers. But tenacity turns out to be as important as caring. The im- prisoned Wes Moore’s mother lived in denial about her son’s drug deal- ing. The author’s mother had “hands that hit so hard you had to be hit only once to know you never


The two Wes Moores I


black lung, “and if you had said to my dad, ‘You have to work until you’re 63,’ that would have been a death sentence.” Fair enough. Some people may need special protection. But, an editor asks, gesturing around the gleaming conference ta- ble at the middle-aged assembly, what about those who do not work in such punishing occupations and for whom the current system would provide two, maybe three, decades of benefits? “What’s wrong with that?” Trumka asks indignantly. “The rest of the world does that!” Yes, and how are things going in Greece? Fresh from The Post, Trumka told


the new fiscal responsibility com- mission that the best way to fix So- cial Security would be to raise or eliminate the cap on earnings sub- ject to the Social Security tax. Again, sounds simple, and raising the cap makes sense — in isolation. But combined with other taxes on the wealthiest? The Congressional Budget Office estimated that raising the cap to cover 90 percent of earn- ings would raise taxes on the high- est earners by 6 percent for those born in the 1960s and by 15 percent for those born in the 2000s. Add that to higher income tax rates and you’re talking real money, although that change would fill only about one-third of the shortfall. Finally, ask Trumka about wheth-


er generous pensions and health benefits promised to public employ- ees remain affordable — were they ever? — in light of strapped state budgets. Should public employees be called on to sacrifice? Trumka fairly bursts with outrage: “Were they the ones that caused this cri- sis? Were they the ones that lost 20 percent of the wealth in this country?” No, but isn’t it hard to defend out-


size benefits to public-sector em- ployees when wages elsewhere are stagnant and the unemployment rate is so high? Not to Trumka. “Why is that hard to defend when a guy in a hedge fund made $4.4 bil- lion last year?” Guys in hedge funds make outra-


geous sums. Union members — even public-sector union members —don’t. Trumka’s frustration is rea- sonable. His one-sided, tax-the-rich reflex is not. It is the shortsighted bookend to the no-new-taxes man- tra of the ideologues on the other side of this stale, and seemingly stalemated, debate. marcusr@washpost.com


wanted to be hit again.” For years, she slept on a couch in the living room, standing guard over her chil- dren in a troubled neighborhood. She sent her son to a private school she couldn’t afford. When he began skipping class and failing, she threatened him with military school. “She had to be bluffing,” thought Moore. She wasn’t. In the most wrenching moment of the book, the troubled Wes Moore encounters his father, whom he has rarely seen, in a stupor on a relative’s couch. After he was awak- ened, this father looks into the eyes of his son and asks, “Who are you?” The author’s father dies when Wes is 3 but remains an image of man- hood, “calm, reassuring, hardwork- ing and sober.” A father who dies re- mains a presence in a child’s life; a father who leaves is an absence nev- er fully filled. Particularly when a father is ab-


sent, examples and mentors as- sume great importance. The im- prisoned Wes Moore finds a model in his gangster older brother. Sent to a military school in Pennsylva- nia, the author runs away three times in the first four days. But he eventually encounters a 19-year-old African American cadet, leading one of the proudest units at the school. “I had never seen anything like that before. I had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much re- spect from his people. . . . This was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people. That’s when I started to understand that I was in a different environment. Not sim- ply because I was in the middle of Pennsylvania instead of the Bronx or Baltimore. It was a different psy- chological environment, where my normal expectations were inverted, where leadership was honored and class clowns were ostracized.” This is military life’s transforming effect on many young men — the discov- ery of a kind of male honor rooted in character. There remains a mystery at the


heart of individual fate. Many are born into circumstances that would test the strongest character. Many are born with unearned advantages and privileges they do not even recognize.


But there is one decisive form of


privilege that many of us can con- trol and confer to others — the te- nacious, demanding love of a par- ent or mentor. michaelgerson@washpost.com


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