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No
Third Way
An easy choice on the ABM Treaty
By NR Editors
From "The Week," December
17, 2001, issue, of National Review
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Bush administration has long said two things about the ABM Treaty:
1) that it won't violate it; 2) that it won't let it stand in the
way of necessary testing of a missile-defense system. At his Crawford
love-fest with Vladimir Putin, Bush had hoped to forge a temporary
Third Way around these two positions by getting the Russians to
agree to certain American tests even though they violate the treaty
(what, after all, are a few treaty violations between such good
friends?). Putin's nyet leaves Bush no way out: He must either forgo
progress toward the urgent national goal of protecting American
cities from missile attack, or withdraw from a treaty that he has
called "useless" and "dangerous." It shouldn't
be a hard choice.
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