Obama & Nuclear Peace

The failed terrorist attack with explosives in the heart of New York, and the possible connection of its author to the Pakistani Taliban or to al-Qaida, renews the preoccupations over the possibility that nuclear devices could fall into the hands of terrorists. It also demonstrates the correct or relevant vision of President Barack Obama in favor of a world without atomic weapons.

In the last 30 days, the United States president made sufficient merits to earn the Nobel Peace Prize that he was so questioned for receiving last year. On April 8, he signed the most important pact when it comes to the reduction of nuclear weapons in the last 20 years. This pact with Russia prolongs the life of the treaty START I. President Barack Obama also summoned 47 countries to Washington, in order to negotiate the reduction of nuclear capabilities, close nuclear reactors, and to safeguard the enriched uranium from terrorist hands.

Although this nuclear theme did not have the media repercussion that the climate change or the economic global recession had, the preoccupation is serious. Contrary to what happened during the Cold War, when the United States and the U.S.S.R. distrusted each other over who would press the red button first, today’s distrust is aimed at the powerful extremist groups that are supported by organized crime and drug trafficking and who would be able to gain easy access to atomic bombs.

Obama’s determination to reach a safer world has also prevailed at an internal level. This week at the opening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Weapons Revision Conference that the United Nations accommodates until May 28, it was announced, at the expense of internal critics, that the European Union would reduce its nuclear arsenal until only 1,500 atomic weapons remain; already the 31,225 nuclear warheads that they possessed in 1967 had been reduced to 84 percent at the end of the past year.

This unusual transparency gave Obama the legitimacy and the leadership he needed in order to pose various demands at a global level: encourage disarmament and oblige those who still have not signed any pact, such as Israel, to reveal their arsenal; press North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear programs if they wish to avoid international punishment. “”Nations that ignore their obligations find themselves less secure, less prosperous and more isolated,” Obama emphasized.

In Latin America, in respect to the treaty of Tlatelolco of 1967 that bans nuclear arms, Obama did not find any obstacles. In relation to the countries with nuclear capacity, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner offered the United States guarantees in order to receive verifying commissions. The Chilean Sebastian Piñera already started to send plutonium to the United States for reasons of major security, and Felipe Calderon accepted cooperation with the United States and Canada to reduce the enrichment of Mexican uranium, reducing its ability to be used in atomic bombs.

The only thing that Obama still has to do, when it comes to South America, is convince President Luiz Inacio Da Silva to stop pressuring Iran. The Brazilian president sees economic sanctions against that country as inefficient, despite his position on the “total and irreversible” elimination of nuclear arms so that they are unavailable to terrorists. What perhaps Lula — one of the most influential leaders in the world, according to Time Magazine — does not understand is that economic sanctions are the most palatable alternative to reach nuclear peace.