Peacemaker Obama Heads For the U.N.

Taking a rest from from lobbying Americans twenty-four hours a day for national health care, President Obama is preparing for his debutante ball at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. Given his propensity for accommodationism, one-worldism, and self-promotion, it is likely that he will receive a much nicer welcome from the organization than he has been receiving at home of late.

Obama's reputed ability to walk on water, turn water into wine, and turn money into smoke still seems to be admired by the tin-pot dictators and kumbaya crowd at the U.N. Of course the successors of Nikita Khruschev have taken note of the President's agenda as well. So far, they like it. The picture above is a 1963 American IRBM in the ready position during the Cuban Missile Crisis brought on by John Kennedy's weak performance in Vienna two years earlier.

The General Assembly: Obama's predecessor first spoke to the General Assembly about international security and terrorism in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Obama will speak on climate change, nonproliferation and development in the less productive parts of the world. Topics before the world body which he may also address include the world economy, education for girls, peacekeeping, curbing sexual violence and streamlining the U.N.'s ability to accomplish absolutely nothing worthwhile while spending billions.

Obama's coming-out party will kick off with a meeting on climate change (formerly known as global warming) in which he will talk to the "leaders" and foreign junk scientists about reducing carbon emissions and other man-made gases which play next-to-no part in global climate change. But they do play a huge part in making money for corporations designed to enrich the eco-elite at the expense of impoverishing the developed world. He might even try to convince the first and third-largest pollution producers, China and India, to give up their industrial and economic advances in order to allow America time to catch down with them. Kyoto, hell, we're preparing to go the Copenhagen conference in December to ruin our economy with or without China's and India's help.

Also on Tuesday, Obama will speak to sub-Saharan African countries about job creation for young people, creating a better trade and investment atmosphere, and to mobilize African agriculture to create jobs and help feed the continent. Well, that's never worked before, but now he can send in platoons of unemployed ACORN workers who will organize the communities to pursue those activities and make the continent bloom. It is unclear how much the President expects the Africans to do for themselves or how they're going to do it in the middle of civil wars, mass murders, slavery, and tribal warfare.

The formal ball begins on Wednesday at the official opening of the General Assembly's "working" year. Following Secretary-General and Spendthrift-in-Chief Ban Ki-moon and President Lula da Silva of Brazil, the U.S. President will step to the podium. It's somehow appropriate that since Obama's policies are quickly turning American into a third-world nation that he should speak third.

The enthusiasm among the delegates is palpable. The Palestinian Authority (that Hamas/Fatah hybrid) expressed its love for a U.S. President who will not use Mr. Bush's lecturing tone, but instead have an attitude of open-mindedness. It is considered "open-minded" to call terrorists "freedom fighters" and mass-murderers "liberators." Ghana's delegate wants to hear the speech because "he [Obama] is very supportive of the U.N. agenda." Well, that's true. The U.N. agenda is to weaken America into insignificance. France, Libya, and Lebanon have also expressed admiration for Obama's open-mindedness. I think someone forgot to tell these people that too much open-mindedness leads to everything spilling out of the head and onto the ground.

Other things that thrill the U.N. are Obama's apparent willingness to support the International Criminal Court (in complete disregard of the Constitution, that trifling parochial American document), and his executive order putting the United States back on the U.N. Human Rights Council, formerly chaired by civil libertarian Moammar Qaddafi, and shunned by President Bush. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice explained that the United States has joined the HRC "fully aware of its many flaws, but we recognize that we can't fix it or contribute to fixing it simply by carping from the outside." Sounds like "if you can't lick 'em, join 'em" to me, but what do I know?

Obama is also assuring the delegates that he will resubmit a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing to the Senate. That will make him even more beloved by the international body which is incapable of enforcing anything. Says one U.N. nuclear proliferation expert: "If the U.S. signs a treaty--even if we know it won't get through your Senate--it will trigger other nations to join it." Yes--Iran and North Korea will rush to sign it, and have no intention of abiding by it. But once a Chamberlain-like President signs it, only to have it rejected by the Senate, American can once again be marginalized for not being in the spirit of good nuclear policy. Obama becomes a hero and the United States becomes a pariah. What's not to like?

Once Obama has made his unchallenged predigested messiah-like speech on peace and "all of us just getting along," he's off to the diplomatic balls and receptions. There he will flash that toothy grin, accept the accolades of the peace-loving world community, and feast on caviar. He will once again be told how brilliant, how Christlike, how intelligent and brave he is. And the slightly-deflated and slightly shopworn ego (from being disrespected by all those boobs in America) will be once again inflated to the size of the Bullwinkle balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

The Security Council: A President who just loves to be worshiped for each of his "firsts" will have another one on Thursday. He will be the first American President to preside over a meeting of the Security Council. As far as my research goes, I believe he's the first President even to attend a Security Council session. Without fanfare, he ordered his U.N. ambassador to alter the original agenda so that the subject is "nonproliferation" where the original agenda included direct references to Iran and North Korea, their violations of U.N. resolutions and shrugging-off of the weak and unenforceable U.N. sanctions. An Arab ambassador, who spoke not for attribution to the press said "I think he is very smart. President Clinton-smart, not just book-smart." When Clinton's popularity dropped below 50%, he had the "smarts" to recognize that it's not wise to push an agenda opposed by 50% to 60% of the American people. Obama continues to do so. So I beg to differ with the Arab delegate--on the record.

I covered this Security Council session and its agenda in some detail earlier, and if you would like to take a look at what Obama is planning, it's here: Obama at the Security Council.

Obama, The U.N. Security Council, and the European Missile Shield that Isn't: Did any of you think that the scrapping of the European anti-missile defense shield was a sudden decision? Anything's possible, but the two main issues to be discussed at the originally-proposed session on Thursday were nuclear non-proliferation (with specific reference to Iran and North Korea), and the delivery systems which accompany nuclear capability. The specifics of non-proliferation were deleted by Ambassador Susan Rice over two months ago at Obama's order, and the delivery systems were cut from the agenda entirely. So we will be treated to another happy-happy discussion of how naughty nukes are, and how we should all hold hands together and hope they go away. And in order to do so, Obama has proposed a nuclear disarmament treaty which doesn't specifically address Iran or North Korea. Kumbaya!

Now I understand fully that concurrence is not causation, but I have to be mighty suspicious of Obama's motives in tossing out the European missile defense system almost immediately preceding his second coronation at the United Nations. I have heard some crazy justifications for crazy actions by previous crazy U.S. administrations, but this one is the craziest. Justifying the scrapping of the plans to deploy anti-missile weapons in the Czech Republic and Poland, Obama National Security Adviser James L. Jones says that it was done because "Iran is further along than previously thought in developing medium-range missiles that could strike Western Europe and the Middle East with nuclear warheads."

If Jones had said that Iran was be farther behind than originally thought, I would have considered it overly-optimistic, but at least there would be some flawed logic justifying terminating, or at least delaying, the deployment. But determining that the threat is not only real, but more immediate, the Obama administration decided to scrap the project that could counter that threat. Did I miss something here?

So here's the justification: Jones says "We think they are heading toward weaponizing these missiles, which obviously we want to dissuade them from doing." That means we're going to dissuade them by eliminating our ability to stop the missiles before they can hit their targets. Alice--bring your looking glass! Jones also says there's an "ancillary benefit" of improving relations with Moscow (at the same time making Press Secretary Gibbs look unusually foolish because Gibbs said that the change was not about Russia the day before). "The fact is, there is clearly a relationship here in all of these issues. We are trying to reset the relationship with Russia, based on one of mutual respect and mutual interest." Old crocodile Russian President Putin is smiling with all his teeth showing. And just to put the frosting on the cake, Putin made it clear "we gave up nothing to obtain this change in American policy." It would have been a lot easier, more efficient and a lot less dangerous if Obama had just told Secretary of State Clinton to call Putin and Medvedev and tell them to push the red re-set button she gave them as a gift.

Under Obama, America is quickly becoming the "pitiful, helpless giant," or the "paper tiger" analogy that previous dictators used to describe America's unwillingness to use its military might to defend itself. And now our allies have been given the mucky end of the stick. Poland and the Czech Republic are already reconsidering their alliances with the United States based on their belief that America is not trustworthy and their proximity to a resurgent imperial Russia makes it dangerous to cast their lot with a weak and vacillating ally.

The final piece of illogic used by the Obama administration is that the shield was designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, and the Iranian missile are intermediate range ballistic missiles capable of reaching only Europe and points in the Mideast (Israel, anyone?). Well, let's throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of modifying the plan by adding IRBM anti-missile defenses to the mix, just throw out the whole plan. Brilliant.

I may be guessing wrong, but I am seeing a coordinated effort by the Obama administration to weaken America militarily, to tolerate Iranian bellicosity, and to mollify Russia in hopes that the former head of the KGB will take this so kindly as to give up his irredentist and expansionist plans. And all of this is underscored by Obama's unprecedented step of presiding over a Security Council session which will advance that effort.