There is much at stake in the United States relationship with Egypt, including the Israel-Egypt peace treaty (Israel's priority), counterterrorism cooperation, priority treatment for ships transiting the Suez Canal, overflight rights for planes to and from Afghanistan.
And why don't the Indonesian government and parliament make the extradition treaty a national priority?
This is manifestly not a club that is paralysed and unable to function without further institutional change.Yet Angela Merkel of Germany, holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, has made agreement on a new treaty her top priority.
Mr. Obama has made the treaty a top priority for the lame-duck session and at Mr. Kyl's insistence, agreed to devote $85 billion over 10 years to modernizing the nuclear weapons complex.
Would the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty be a priority, she wanted to know? "Yes, it will be, and it will be because it is long overdue," replied Clinton.
The full-bore press demonstrated that Mr. Obama has made the treaty his top legislative priority for the rest of the year, other than a tax-cut deal.
Mr. Obama had assured President Dmitri A. Medvedev during a meeting just two days earlier that winning approval of the treaty was his "top priority" in foreign affairs for the lame-duck session.
He also came to an agreement with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to start negotiations on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to be completed by the end of this year and has made ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty an important legislative priority.
To have enough time for the treaty, he said, Democratic priorities for the lame-duck session would have to be tabled, like legislation on immigration and gays in the military.
"We feel revising the treaties is not a priority for the time being," he said.
President Obama has made passing the treaty his top foreign policy priority for the lame-duck session.
