The Senate should want to send exactly the same message. Unfortunately, it did not. With its abrupt scheduling, rushed debate and needless negative vote on the test ban treaty, the Republican Senate majority all but abdicated its constitutional responsibility to play a thoughtful and deliberative role in the shaping of American foreign policy. With the United States now the world's foremost military and economic power, senators as well as presidents must rise to the challenge of international leadership, helping to project the moral vision of the American people onto the global arena. Too many senators failed this crucial test.
Senators have a complex and serious role to play on foreign policy matters.
Their duty is not to assent passively to every presidential initiative, but to engage their own minds and consciences, particularly on grave questions of war, peace and treaties. Too many Republican senators shortchanged that duty by allowing the majority leader, Trent Lott, and a handful of committed treaty opponents to turn the test ban issue into a partisan arm-wrestling contest with the White House and Senate Democratic leadership. At no time in the ludicrously compressed Senate debate was the country offered a serious alternative Republican view of how to contain the alarming development of nuclear weapons in South Asia and their potential spread to such troubled areas as the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. Instead, many opponents spoke as if the United States could afford to turn its back on international arms control treaties and address the spread of nuclear weapons solely through superior military strength. As Mr. Clinton noted yesterday, that kind of armed isolationism makes little sense and offers no real security at the dawn of the 21st century.