Inertia Should Be Our Friend

Mad Minerva rightly laments the de facto arms sales freeze that we have put on Taiwan for the remainder of the Bush administration.

I'm puzzled since a month ago we did authorize the sale of Harpoon missiles, which I hoped would open the spigot after an Olympics pause. But apparently that was not the beginning of renewed sales.

So either President McCain has to take the "blame" for deteriorating relations by starting up arms sales to Taiwan or President Obama refuses to risk "restoring our soft power" by keeping the freeze in place and not angering China.

President Bush needs to let inertia work for us. Start up arms sales after the election and let McCain or Obama rest on precedent to refuse to halt pending sales until they can "review" the situation some time before their second term ends.

I just don't understand how dangling a small allied democracy before the maw of an aggressive Communist state is in our best interests--let alone the obvious impact on Taiwanese interests.