Republicans are finding new and incredibly internationally destructive means of obstructing the nation's business.

A group of 10 incoming Republican senators sent a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling on him to postpone a vote on a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia until they have been seated. “Out of respect for our states’ voters, we believe it would be improper for the Senate to consider the New START Treaty or any other treaty in a lame duck session prior to Jan. 3, 2011,” the letter said.... “Few matters will more directly impact our security than arms control agreements like New START that would dramatically reduce the U.S. nuclear deterrent in a strategic environment that is becoming ever more perilous,” the senators said.

Never mind that Senators are elected to serve six years, not five years and six months, and the constituents of those actual, sitting Senators also deserve respect. But more alarmingly, the Republican caucus is apparently determined to have the cold war back, not being content with just Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, some of them seem to think it never ended.

Appearing on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell today, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) attempted to justify the threatened Republican obstruction of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. But in doing so, he wrongly called Russia the Soviet Union — not once, but twice.

You'd think some of these guys would at least be moved to think, "What would Ronald Reagan do?" Apparently not, if you can believe Reagan's START negotiator.

Dismantling the arguments against the New START treaty on the NewsHour last night, Richard Burt, the Reagan administration’s chief U.S. negotiator for the original START treaty, noted that “there are only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified, the government in Tehran and the government in North Korea.” Aside from the fact that nearly 75 percent of Americans want to see it ratified, Burt also warned that, if the treaty fails, not only would “we miss the opportunity to improve relations with the Russians, who have supported us on Iran and U.N. sanctions and increasingly in Afghanistan,” but the U.S. would also “lose all credibility on the problem of stopping nuclear proliferation.”

So, according to Reagan's START negotiator, Senate Republicans are in agreement with Iran and North Korea in trying to obstruct this treaty? Not very good company, and yet only Sen. Lugar seems to have retained sanity in regards to our international standing and the importance of this treaty.