Crashing Obama’s Nuclear Wedding
Kim Holmes /
Raising concerns about a new nuclear arms treaty is considered declasse. It’s about as welcome as a wedding crasher who questions the groom’s choice of a bride.
Like weddings, nuclear treaties are supposedly joyous occasions. Posing questions is treated as an affront to the very nobility of the enterprise (although for some marriages and certain treaties, the prospective partners would have been better off answering questions before tying the knot).
Similarly, some people can’t imagine how reducing the levels of nuclear arms in the United States and Russia could possibly be a bad thing. They think the problem is that nuclear weapons even exist. That these weapons, in the right hands, may help keep the peace is hard for them to understand.
One of those people is President Obama. Announcing a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia last week, he said, “Today, we have taken another step forward in leaving behind the legacy of the 20th century.” The “dark” legacy of the Cold War, Mr. Obama believes, is the mere existence of nuclear weapons; thus, this agreement is a step toward “a world without nuclear weapons.” (more…)