OPINION:
Barack Obama is to nuclear deals as Charlie Brown to Lucy, with her elusive football snatched away to leave Charlie on his back. After missing badly last summer in his high-stakes game with Iran, the president has been played again, this time by the repressive North Korean regime armed with nuclear weapons. His Nobel Peace Prize was won with the rigged luck of the amateur. Actually making peace takes the skill of a pro with his eyes wide open.
The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice; a peace treaty was never signed and North Korea has been dangling the possibility of such an agreement before the United States since, though it’s not at all clear why Washington should be eager for one. After Mr. Obama led “world powers” to sign the sucker’s deal with the Islamic regime in Tehran, the North Koreans clamored for a deal like it. Mr. Obama obliged by dropping the longstanding condition that normalized relations must be preceded by North Korean denuclearization. The United States simply asks that the government in Pyongyang talk about nuclear weapons. Supreme leader Kim Jong-un, understanding that talk is cheap, answered with another nuclear-weapons test.
Mr. Obama wants to settle America’s outstanding disputes with its historic enemies — at least in his own mind — before he waves goodbye from the White House South Lawn next January. Making deals with rogue nations with nuclear ambitions, specifically Iran and North Korea, are at the top of his to-do list before he flies off to Havana to parley with the infamous Castro brothers.
Whatever else he may be, this president is not a poker player. In his haste to deal, he has shed doubt on America’s reputation as a reliable peacekeeper. American allies are feeling vulnerable and some are undertaking nuclear programs of their own. Among them are Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and both South Korea and Japan are considering building their own nuclear arsenals as a back-up against continued American fecklessness.
The world has become more, not less, dangerous on Mr. Obama’s watch. Iran manipulated the president into signing an agreement that purports to curtail its nuclear arsenal in the short term while expanding a nuclear threat in the future. North Korea toys with the president over armistice talks, and fires a nuclear test practically in his face and launches a satellite into earth orbit as a cover for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of sending a nuclear warhead to North America.
The American public, however, is clear-eyed about the nations that pose the threats. A Gallup poll this week finds that 16 percent of Americans put North Korea at the top of a list of perceived enemies, with Russia second at 15 percent, followed by Iran at 14 percent and China at 12 percent.
None of this skepticism dissuades Mr. Obama from his rounds trying to process peace. Steps to resolve enmity with rogues is laudable, but doing it foolishly has the look of capitulation. It’s worth a chuckle when Charlie Brown falls for Lucy’s trickery in the funny papers, but it’s not funny when a president falls for it every time.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.