US President Barack Obama locked up enough Republican votes to ratify a new arms control treaty with Russia that would cap nuclear warheads for both former Cold War foes and restart on-site weapons inspections.
Eleven Senate Republicans joined Democrats in a 67-28 proxy vote yesterday to wind up the debate and hold a final tally on Wednesday. They broke ranks with the Senate's top two Republicans and were poised to give Obama a victory on his top foreign policy priority.
"We are on the brink of writing the next chapter in the 40-year history of wrestling with the threat of nuclear weapons," Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Democrat, said after the vote.
Ratification requires two-thirds of those voting in the Senate and Democrats needed at least nine Republicans to overcome the opposition of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, the party's point man on the pact.
The Obama administration has made arms control negotiations the centerpiece of resetting its relationship with Russia, and the treaty was critical to any rapprochement.
Momentum for the treaty accelerated earlier in the day Tuesday, the seventh day of debate, when Lamar Alexander, the third-largest Republican in the Senate, endorsed the accord.
The treaty will leave the United States "with enough nuclear warheads to blow any attacker to kingdom come," Alexander said on the Senate floor, adding, "I'm convinced that Americans are safer and more secure with the New START treaty than without it." Four other Republican senators said they would back the pact.
'START' stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Five other Republican senators-- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Robert Bennett of Utah and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, said they would back the pact.
"We are on the brink of writing the next chapter in the 40-year history of wrestling with the threat of nuclear weapons," Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass, said after the vote.
Obama has insisted the treaty is a national security imperative that will improve cooperation with Russia, an argument loudly echoed by the nation's military and foreign policy leaders, former Presidents George H W Bush and Bill Clinton and six Republican secretaries of state.
