While Obama insists that democratic Honduras make a socialist would-be dictator the president of their country and denies our ally, democratic Israel, the ability to stop a nuclear attack by Iran, he openly embraces the country formerly known as the Evil Empire as it becomes less and less democratic. On Monday as I relaxed in a Key West bar, I watched the mainstream media herald the “peace-in-our-time” agreement reached between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. First of all, let’s put this new agreement in context. Former presidents Bush and Putin previously worked out a deal to reduce warheads to 1,700-2,200 to be concluded by 2013 while in this agreement Obama and Medvedev agreed to cut them by 1,500 to 1,675… making the new agreement only slightly lower, contrary what the mainstream media would like us to think.

Second, if we want to talk about serious nuclear disarmament, then George W. Bush is your man. The former president cut our nuclear weapons stockpile by 50% of 2001 levels by the year 2007. Of course, don’t expect the anti-Bush liberals to embrace the former president because of this. Even Republicans criticized Bush for his actions. I, for one, do not think that huge arsenals of nuclear weapons are necessary if we can get Russia to reduce their own stockpiles… and the idea of weapons that can blow up the world many times over gives me pause. We already have other weapons in our arsenal that can totally annihilate the enemy without bringing about a nuclear apocalypse.

Third, the true result of the meeting with Medvedev was the reduction of our influence in the former Soviet republics. Obama explicitly pointed out that he wishes to negotiate both nuclear weapons and anti-missile defense programs. At least he did not completely scrap plans for the missile shield, but he has put the plans in jeopardy at a time when North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear weapons and missiles. At the same time, Russia has allowed for NATO to transport supplies through its territory for the war in Afghanistan which is more of a liability than anything else. Once we start using Russian-territory supply routes for our troops in Afghanistan, it will be much easier for Russia to demand that NATO back off from extending its alliance to Ukraine and Georgia, countries that Russia considers to be within its sphere of influence. So far, Obama has not made any commitments except to say that the sovereignty of those countries should be respected and that NATO should not be confronting Russia. We must remember that Russia just invaded Georgia late last year on the premise that it was “protecting Russian citizens” in Georgia. The truth is that NATO cannot afford to act without US leadership and with the ever-so-timid Obama at the helm, Georgian inclusion in NATO may lead to direct war with Russia. Obama will not risk war nor will he risk his supply route through Russia.

Like almost everything Obama has done, US “gains” in this negotiation actually make Russia stronger and America weaker. While I originally set out to praise Obama for not “giving away the store” in Moscow, the fact that the bar is so low made me put this meeting with Medvedev in perspective. All in all, reducing nukes is a good thing as long as no other country has an advantage, while dismantling missile defense programs and letting Russia gobble up its neighbors is a terrible thing. We came out losing on this one, but not as much as I thought. Sadly, if foreign policy negotiations were like poker, Obama would lose every match… despite always having a Royal Flush.

-AG