Iran agrees with Obama’s no-nukes policy

On Sunday, President Obama announced plans to unilaterally disarm our nuclear arsenal. He’ll be pleased to know that his cohorts in Iran think we should disarm, too. (Reuters link)

“We, like the rest of the world community, are awaiting a world free of nuclear arms,” [Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan] Qashqavi said.

“Our expectation from the U.S. and others is to take serious and practical measures toward nuclear disarmament and dismantling of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

I guess they figure that Iran will finally get their nuclear arsenal at about the time we dismantle ours. Wouldn’t that be convenient for them? And they finally have an American president that can accommodate them. And of course, Eugene Robinson, Washington Post‘s resident Obama apostle, can’t understand why anyone would criticize Obama for being so naive;

In 1968, the United States was one of the first nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — the landmark agreement that has been used, with great success, to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. When the NPT went into force, there were five nuclear powers — the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union (now Russia). In the four decades since, the world has added four more — India, Pakistan, Israel (not officially, but that’s the consensus) and North Korea, although the Hermit Kingdom’s damp-squib test weapon and its wobbly ballistic missile make me think that Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear program is more of a threat to Pyongyang than to Portland.

That’s typical of Robinson’s not-so-veiled racism. So what if North Korea can only blow up yellow people? As long as Obama rids this side of the world of nukes, that’s all that matters. That’s probably why Robinson isn’t too worried about Iran either – they’ll only blow up Jews.

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post takes the opposite tack on the same page;

Which is all very nice — but as the central plank in an American president’s foreign policy, a call for universal nuclear disarmament seems rather beside the point. Apparently, Obama’s intention is to lead by example: If the United States cuts its own nuclear arsenal and bans testing, then, allegedly, others will follow.

Yet there is no evidence that U.S. nuclear arms reductions have ever inspired others to do the same. All of the world’s more recent nuclear powers — Israel, India, Pakistan — acquired their weapons well after such talks began, more than 40 years ago.

Using the same data and history two people arrive at different conclusions. That only leaves one factor – Robinson longs for the day that Barack Obama will fart in his general direction so Gene can partake in the olfactory joy of The One. And it doesn’t bother Robinson, or Obama, for that matter, that they agree with the Islamic Republic.

Here’s the thing that Obama and Robinson don’t understand; as long as we’ve had the nuclear capability to retaliate against any nation which decides to use nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons haven’t been used. Why would we want to change that balance? It’s naive and demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the history of nuclear deterrence.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Foreign Policy, Media