Lowry: The 'Excuse Me' President

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04072009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_excuse_me_prez_163245.htm

As soon as the UN Security Council passes another ineffectual resolution regretting the defiance of its last ineffectual resolution, the North knows it can eventually find the Obama administration back at a negotiating table for the charade's next act.

The meme in the press was how the test launch made Obama's disarmament speech all the more "urgent." It really makes it all the more childish and dangerous. In setting the goal of "Global Zero" (the program of universal disarmament that sounds a little like a new international Coke product), Obama hitched himself to a project as utopian as President George W. Bush's ambition to end tyranny in the world.

In fact, they're essentially the same goal. The bipartisan congressional Strategic Posture Review concluded in an interim report that to achieve Global Zero would require a "fundamental transformation of the world political order." All significant geopolitical conflicts would have to end, and all untrustworthy governments disappear. The verification regime would have to be so all-encompassing as to constitute a kind of world government.

The administration thinks Global Zero serves a hardheaded purpose against rogue states. The theory is that our arsenal makes us nuclear hypocrites. Only by pursuing its elimination do we gain the moral standing to pressure others to give up their nuclear ambitions.