S.F.A.

Which stands for Strategic Framework Agreement. SoS Rice & SoD Gates are in Moscow meeting with their counterparts today, and they met with President Putin just last night. Why? To get this lagging issue of missile defense in Eastern Europe out of the way, which has apparently been the thorn in Putin's side derailing any and all progress towards a congenial post Soviet Russo-American relationship. They've finally had a bit of a break through. The US has agreed in writing to allow Russian observers to be/remain on site at our impending missile & radar sites we are putting in the Czech Republic and Poland - meant to thwart Iran primarily - and demonstrate that they are pointed at, and only at Tehran. Both have also agreed to set up the SFA as a means of dealing with all future issues. One of those issues will be coming up with a framework that will replace the expiring START 1 (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) next year, which is the framework set in place for inspecting, verifying and ultimately attempting to limit our mutual nuclear weapons programs, along with other nuclear nonproliferation provisions. The full text of the treaty is at http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/91-139.htm


So, something on the order of 4 years after announcing the withdrawal of the ABM treaty so that we could go forward with those Czech & Polish missile sites the Bush administration finally gets creative in trying to mend that fence while getting what we want - a deterrent for Iran concerning any attacks on our NATO allies. Well, its a start and a helluva good thing to set in motion before the next president takes office ... read: just in case its a Democrat.