Iran and North Korea exposed its hollowness weeks before our president convened it.
Hours before President Obama convened a fifty-nation summit on nuclear weapons last Thursday, he celebrated himself in a Washington Post op-ed. He began the article by reminding us that nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons are the greatest dangers facing the world, saying that was why he committed us, seven years ago, to stopping the spread of such weapons and seeking a world without them.
Obama went on to praise his nuclear weapons deal with Iran, saying that it closed every single one of Iran’s paths to the bomb. (He omitted to mention those that remain open, such as the agreement’s risible inspections regime which guarantees Iranian cheating by allowing it to self-inspect some of its key nuclear sites. And the one that allows it, after fifteen years, to enrich as much uranium to weapons grade as it likes, ensuring it can produce nuclear weapons then whenever it likes.)
Unsurprisingly, neither is there anything to learn from nor anything accomplished at Obama’s summit. There’s much more to learn and dissect in the actions and pronouncements of Iran and North Korea before the summit.
On March 8 and 9, Iran launched ballistic missiles in tests of weapons that have at least the range to hit Israel. According to the Iranian FARS news agency, the missiles were painted with the slogan, “Israel must be wiped off the Earth” in Hebrew. UN Security Council resolutions are supposed to be stopping Iran from testing such missiles, but those resolutions are having the same effect they usually have, which is exactly none.
On March 30, the day before Obama’s summit, Iran’s “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors.”