Obama mimics JFK and Reagan in his campaign to scale back nuclear weapons
Il Giornale, June 20th, 2013
The President during talks in Berlin launched a proposal: a one-third cut in nuclear arsenals. He copies the two giants who both made history with one comment, in a completely different era. But he talks too much and misses the targets
Both Kennedy and Reagan pronounced 4 words a head at the Brandenburg Gate, one in 1963, the other in 1987. John said: “Ich Bin Ein Berliner”, two years after the wall between the Communist and Democratic worlds had been built. What he meant was that the wall was the most significant sign of failure of Communism, and he was right. He wanted to underline also that the United States were completely and utterly anticommunist and that they would fight for the rights of Communist citizens as if they were their own. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, despite all his advisers and diplomats highly recommending the contrary, roared: “Tear down this wall” if you seek peace, if you seek liberalization, destroy the wall Mr. Gorbaciov. There was enough decision, inspiration and also severity (Reagan is the president who promoted the politics of the Jackson and Vanick Amendment, decisive for the USSR fall) in the simple formula used by the US President in 1987: he felt history knocking at the door, and where a turnaround is about to happen and you feel that you are on the right side there is no need to argue your case. There was not much to be explained, but a lot to do.
Yesterday at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama made his own attempt to deliver the historical speech that every President feels he must leave as his heritage, but he used a mountain of words and a mixture of concepts, trying to win over the hearts of those who naturally succumb to such good feelings. The core issue was, from his point of view, powerful: it was the proposal made to Russia to cut nuclear weapon arsenals by one third, but it seems quite uneffective, nowaday, to go on this path: there is no much realism or political prospects in such a statement with all the global problems that the whole world is currently having to face. It would have been nice to see Obama finally get off his high horse, his pedestal of do-goodism, and finally explain more about the role that the USA intends to take on in assisting the world overcome the global economic and strategic crisis. But Obama was still in his first term, before the current problems, the accuses of spying his citizens, the crumbling world economy, the unberable uncertainty of american foreign policies which have allowed an increasingly agitated, unstable world to flower. Obama drowned his proposal in a bed of rhetoric statements that make you "raise your eyes" as he said quoting Kennedy's speech so high that you see only clouds. Obama embraced the battle against social injustice, proposed global changes, help to the poor, combat terrorism, global warming, peace, justice, respect for all immigrants, child poverty, medical aid, healing poor countries, security and freedom requested by the public opinion abroad, end of all the wars, ... and who can say no to any of the above good intentions? The proposal to cut back on nuclear weapons was, in fact, drowned in a speech which was full of rather confused proposals, all based on the rather aged idea of stopping all kinds of violenc e and giving human kind freedom forever.
The cut back in nuclear weapons was part of his policy in his first term at the White House, and it's an old way that has been already started, in better times. But the disaggreements with Russia that are mainly focused on Syria and ongoing discussion on American missiles in Europe are something that irritate Putin and have immediately led to a rather icy response on his behalf. Russia wants “the involvement of other Countries” in order to decide on the proposal of Obama. And the prompt reply by the Americans, stepping down a peg or two, was that "the cut in nuclear arsenals... do not apply to the arms deployed in Europe to support Nato”.
By the way, one of the fisrt denuclearisation proposals was made exactly when news was received on nuclear testing activities by North Korea. But it's so nice to hope: everyone would like to see a denuclearised world, but at the moment, it would have been good to hear a world leader give some answers on the three huge and disquieting questions that lurk over the denuclearization question as a whole: North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. And the Pakistan issues could explode right now as the Afghan President Karzai declared he was furious and extremely worried about Obama's pledge to start discussions with the Talebans. Attacks by Pakistan continue to hold the border at ransom. It is certainly a disappointment for Karzai that the persecutors of his population are being acknowledged by the Americans: those extremists that have been enemy number one enemy for so many years and for good reasons; it is practically absurd to think that the USA could ever sign pacts with fanatic assassins of women, homosexuals, dissidents, the assassins that have tormented the lives of so many. Obama said nothing serious, again, on Syria or the Muslim brothers. He stood high on his sugar-coated stage of world peace, and again, he said nothing of substance.