The Economist weighs in, with some interesting points:
Earlier this month, Mr Obama unveiled a new policy that reduced America’s reliance on nukes. America’s priority was not so much deterring nuclear attack by other states, but preventing foes like Iran and terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. America would not develop a new generation of warheads; nor would it use nuclear weapons against countries in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), even if they resorted to chemical or biological weapons. By extension, states like Iran, suspected of breaching the NPT, remain open to nuclear attack.
Mr Obama is hoping to convince others to join his show. He may be succeeding. On April 12th-13th he hosted a nuclear-security summit in which 47 countries—billed as the most important diplomatic gathering in America since the founding of the United Nations in 1945—agreed that “nuclear terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security”. They set out a four-year timetable to gather up and secure bomb-usable fissile material.
It is easy to say that terrorists should not obtain nuclear bombs, and the meeting produced no binding accords. Negotiating a new treaty would be arduous, if not impossible. Instead America is promoting a more informal consensus-building approach. American officials said that simply reaching agreement on the nature of the threat was important, and the involvement of so many leaders meant that the accord might be taken seriously. Among many exhortations, the summit urged countries to ratify existing nuclear-security treaties. It called on states with reactors burning high-enriched uranium to switch to the low-enriched sort.
Several countries went further. Ukraine, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Kazakhstan were among those promising to dispose of bomb-usable enriched uranium or plutonium on their soil. Russia and America finalised a decade-old deal to eliminate 68 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for nearly 17,000 nuclear devices. Russia also said it would shut down its last plutonium-producing reactor. [...]
In the view of Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, America’s new policy should turn the tables on critics of the old nuclear powers. It “exposes clearly that those who would charge hypocrisy against us are in fact guilty of the very sin themselves.” Beyond such debating points, Western diplomats have little hope of real gains, such as establishing intrusive nuclear inspections (of the sort that Iran now rejects) as a universal norm. Even an anodyne diplomatic statement looks hard. Perhaps the best that can be expected is a deadlock in which Iran loses support from Brazil, Egypt and key emerging countries.
So for all the feel-good talk in Washington this week, Mr Obama knows he has much to do if he is to curb Iran, and silence those who think he is giving up America’s nuclear defences for no gain.
