Reuters April 7, 2009
ANALYSIS-Can Obama persuade world on nuclear arms?
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - U.S. presidents for decades have sought nuclear disarmament. Now Barack Obama is bringing his "Yes we can" idealism to the goal.
Will his effort be any different from past attempts? Some experts say yes, because he is making it a centerpiece of his foreign policy.
Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons." Reagan and subsequent presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all pursued American and Russian reductions in Cold War stockpiles of nuclear warheads.
But the prospect of having the security that possession of a nuclear weapon may provide is tantalizing, not to mention the ability to eliminate enemies with one mushroom cloud.
Britain, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea also have nuclear weapons, and Iran is suspected of wanting to join the club, along with militant groups who would love a nuclear bomb to attack the people they hate.
"So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said on Sunday in Prague.
"I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime," Obama said. "It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, 'Yes we can.'"
Nuclear policy experts said Obama's policy appeared to go beyond that of past presidents.
Clark Murdock, a nuclear expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said Obama had surpassed his predecessors by putting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons at the center of his foreign policy.
"This is a full agenda that he has said he would pursue. And so in my mind it is the sincerity of the effort that distinguishes it from past efforts," Murdock said.
'EVERYONE'S ULTIMATE AMBITION'
While Bush, like Obama, favored extending strategic arms reduction talks with Russia, Obama goes a step further by vowing to aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The treaty bans all nuclear explosions. The U.N. General Assembly adopted it in 1996 but it has yet to take force. The U.S. Senate rejected ratification of it in 1999. Obama has said he would ask the Senate to reconsider it.
John Bolton, who was a combative U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, said Obama's goal of a nuclear-free world was "everyone's ultimate ambition."
But, Bolton said, "I don't think it's realistic to think nuclear weapons will disappear for a long, long time, not until the lion lays down with the lamb."
Bolton said Obama's effort rings hollow given North Korea's increasing belligerence -- launching a nuclear-capable missile over the weekend -- and Iran's suspected pursuit of a bomb.
"You're not going to deal with the threats currently before us by creating new treaty systems. We have plenty of treaties, but we are confronted by states like North Korea and Iran that make all kinds of agreements but proceed to break their word," Bolton said.
John Pike, an expert on defense policy as director of GlobalSecurity.org, said Obama's policy was welcome but that "it is a lot easier to say you want to get rid of them than to figure out how to do it."
"All of these countries have nuclear weapons for ... external security reasons. Can they be talked out of them? Yes, possibly. Any time soon? I don't think so," he said.
P.J. Crowley, a foreign policy expert at the Center for American Progress think tank and a National Security Council spokesman in the Clinton White House, said one major goal is to head off an arms race in Asia and the Middle East that could arise due to the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.
"If you're seeing an expansion in the reliance on nuclear weapons, then it makes it that much more difficult to prevent them from getting into the wrong hands," he said.
© Copyright 2009, Reuters
