World Peace Visionary or the U.S.’s Naysayer?

This week, as the Senate debated some 600 amendments to the proposed healthcare reform, the President was front and center on the world stage.

On Wednesday (Sept. 23rd), the President laid out his four goals for the world in his address to the UN General Assembly: “Today, let me put forward four pillars that I believe are fundamental to the future that we want for our children: non-proliferation and disarmament; the promotion of peace and security; the preservation of our planet; and a global economy that advances opportunity for all people.”

Sounds like a true visionary, and if that will become the legacy of the President, wonderful. However, he was addressing the UN, seeking its cooperation. In an ideal world, with leaders whose only motivation would be peace and the advancement of opportunity for all, the President’s four goals would be worthy of universal agreement.

However, as Steve Hayes, senior writer for "The Weekly Standard" pointed out… “ The United Nations is a broken institution. You have Muammar Qaddafi, a rogue dictator, a crazy man, speaking -- supposed to speak for 15 minutes, ends up speaking for some 90 minutes…The United Nations was never able to enforce its resolutions on Iraq. It is not able to enforce its resolutions on Iran. It is not even able to keep Muammar Qaddafi from talking for more than 15 minutes.”

Hayes’ evaluation notwithstanding, Qaddafi did highlight the ineffectiveness of the UN. At one point, Qaddafi grabbed hold of the UN charter and threw it over his shoulder in obvious disdain, and chastised the international body for failing to intervene or prevent some 65 wars since the U.N. was founded in 1945.

However, back to the President’s address…as he welcomed the repeated applause of the world community, he had this to say:

“No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional divisions between nations of the South and the North make no sense in an interconnected world; nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War.”

I guess he was talking about NATO in his reference to “alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War.” I have no idea what the “divisions of nations of the South and the North” means, other than the U.S. and Latin America…or maybe between North Korea and South Korea. The President often uses these Ciceronian metric cadences with words that one glosses over without understanding what he means…if he even knows what he means.

It is no wonder that former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, the only Ph.D. historian ever to serve in the House, turns to Charles Krauthammer for his insights into the political news of the day.

Krauthammer had this to say about that portion of the President’s speech:

“You had a president of the United States actually saying no nation can or should try to dominate another.

“I will buy the ‘should try to’ as kind of adolescent wishful thinking, but no nation can dominate another? What planet is he living on? It is the story of man. What does he think Russia is doing to Georgia?

“But the alarming part is what he said in the same paragraph where he said that it is -- makes no sense anymore-- quote, ‘The alignments of nations that are rooted in the cleavages of the cold war.’

“Well, NATO is rooted in the cleavage of the cold war. The European Union is rooted in the cleavage of the cold war. Our alliances with Japan and Korea and the Philippines, our guarantees to Taiwan and Eastern Europe are all rooted in the cleavage of the cold war.

“Interesting noun, incidentally. So he is saying that is all now irrelevant. What does he think our allies are going to think who hear this?

“Obama's speech is alarming because it says the United States has no more moral right to act or to influence world history than Bangladesh or Sierra Leone.

“It diminishes the United States deliberately and wants to say that we should be one nation among others, and not defend the alliance of democracies that we have in NATO, for example, or to say as every president has said before Obama that we stand for something good and unique in the world.

“And it is not the equivalent, for example, of the alignment of Chavez with Ecuador and Bolivia and Nicaragua and Russia and Cuba and Iran.”

Rhetoric will never achieve the four lofty goals of the President. Nor will abrogating our country’s destiny to lead the world of friendly nations in its never-ending confrontation with those countries and movements which wish us harm.

Obama will have friends in the world community, but his kind of friends may ultimately turn into what they already are…our worst enemies.