Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) had an excellent OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle today entitled “Russian nuclear agreement a good start.” Responding to President Obama’s negotiations with Russia, she applauds this initial step while highlighting the need to continue on a path forward to make the world safer from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Below are the beginning paragraphs. Click here to read the whole OpEd.

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached preliminary agreement Monday for deep cuts to both nations’ deployed strategic nuclear arsenals – to as low as 1,500 warheads each. This is good news. It provides negotiators a framework for a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by year’s end that would push our nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels of any U.S.-Russian arms control agreement. More broadly, it signals a thaw in the U.S.-Russian relationship and heralds a new era in arms control – one that could lead one day to a world free of nuclear weapons.