Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

Sally McNamara / November 23, 2010

Speaking to the media this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CBS’s Bob Schieffer that at NATO’s Lisbon Summit this weekend, many European states including Germany, Poland and the Baltic states had pressed the Administration on the ratification of New START.

During one of the summit’s many news conferences, President Obama also stated, “Unprompted, I have received overwhelming support from our allies here that Start — the New Start treaty — is a critical component to U.S. and European security.” However, Czech defense minister, Alexandr Vondra revealed that it was the other way round; in fact, the Administration had asked their Central and Eastern European allies to lobby for the Treaty. He stated: “Throughout the summit, there was intense lobbying by the administration to win support for the ratification process.”

This request must have come as quite a shock to the Czechs, who only a year-ago received a midnight phone call from the President to tell them they’d been dropped like a hot brick from the previous Administration’s (more…)