This looks rather familiar

Ed Morrissey on Hot Air details the disagreements between what the Russian government and the American government think the new START agreement is about. As he says, these matters should be discussed before the pact is ready to be ratified and has, indeed, been by one side and is about to be by the other. If the Russians decide to add their own interpretation, the new treaty will have to be taken back to Senate who will, probably, not agree to those words about limiting defensive systems.

What caught my eye especially was this paragraph:

This leaves us with very little assurance that Obama has not bargained away missile defense. Their argument, that the preamble is not legally binding, is rather weak. Certainly the preamble exists for a reason; if Obama wanted to protect missile defense, why allow it to be mentioned at all? Doesn’t the existence of the at-least confusing language in the preamble have any meaning, and if it didn’t, why even bother to have a preamble? Clearly, the Russians wanted that language and wanted the preamble, and someone on the American side should have given that enough thought to understand that the Russians would find it meaningful.

How often have we heard from British negotiators of various EU treaties that the Preamble is not legally binding and is of no importance only for them and us to find that it is, indeed, binding and comprises the most important part of the particular agreement. I am rather shocked to find that American negotiators are no better than the British ones.