Broder Misses The Mark

David Broder penned this column today. In it he described the Obama presidency as one which will be deemed "an era of substantial but deferred accomplishments".

This is at least the second Broder column since the passage of "Obamacare" in which Broder, like so many inside the beltway pundits, has lauded the President's accomplishments and  essentially predicted an Obama "comeback" in stature and effectiveness.

The strangest part of this column (at least to me) is that Broder used the President's recent nuclear arms summit as the basis for his views. Broder lauds the President for seeking "a nuclear free world" (I'll leave aside my view that this is more a bumper sticker slogan than a well-defined policy). But Broder goes on to discuss the summit as if it represented real movement towards nuclear arms reduction.

Obama has done little in the real world to stop the growth of nuclear weapons. Broder and others will point to his deal with the Russians to reduce the number of nuclear warheads. But the Russians only did that deal so that they would not have to replace obsolete missles to retain parity with the US. We got rid of useful weapons, they got rid of junk.

Further, I'd argue his inaction on Iranian nukes will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and virtually insure that terrorists get their hands on nuclear materials. The Israelis cannot let Iran actually develop weapons that the Iranian President says he will use on Israel. As such, Israel must inevitably attack the Iranian nuke facillities. The US has apparently decided it will not acquiesce in such an attack and has denied Israel the "bunker buster" bombs which it would likely have used in such an effort. That will leave Israel with only one choice; use tactical nuclear weapons on Iran. That will set off an effort by every major Middle Eastern arab nation to get nuclear weapons.

Broder though thinks this summit will have the effect of  going dramatically further down the path of disarmament. After all, Broder noted that 46 nations sent representatives who expressed their assent to the goal. I wonder if some aging pundit in 1928 waxed eloquent over the banning of war as public policy when more than 50 nations signed the Kellog-Briand Treaty? That worked out well, didn't it?

Sadly, Broder is clearly past his prime. He is wrong on both his belief in the value of the nuke summit and the re-birth of the Obama presidency. I think the November elections should allow for a useful evaluation of what Americans think on this score.