Like his predecessors, President Barack Obama is intent on leaving his mark on history, and he has chosen to do so by helping subdue the nuclear threat that bedevils the modern world. Pulsing with energy and confidence, the president has a penchant for diplomacy over confrontation, and it's beginning to pay off. Obama persuaded 46 world leaders to recognize nuclear terrorism as a major threat to global security and endorse his call to secure these weapons and nuclear materials within four years. The summit this week convened shortly after the US and Russia took steps to reduce their nuclear arsenals with the first significant arms control treaty in a generation. Two years from now, progress will be measured at a follow-up summit in South Korea. Obama has not been content to warn of the threat of nuclear conflict, but seems determined to mobilize the global community to meet it. “The key now is to hit the ground running in turning the summit words into real action on the ground in the weeks and months to come,” Matthew Bunn, of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, said in a statement. Then-president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reached high as well. They agreed at a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1984 to eliminate all US and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles within 10 years. But the historic accord fell by the wayside when Reagan refused to give up his hopes for a US Strategic Defense Initiative, the “Star Wars” missile shield that Moscow feared would upset the decades-old East-West nuclear standoff. Obama is not a one-issue president. He has made peace in the Middle East a goal, and run into a brick wall trying to persuade Israel to make difficult concessions. Befitting the nuclear age, however, history will likely judge him on how he does in curbing terrorism and restraining countries such as North Korea and Iran from posing nuclear threats. North Korea is resisting diplomatic overtures while Iran appears to be slowly but surely moving toward producing its first nuclear weapon. Iran denies that is its goal. It insists the program seeks civilian energy. But Iran's statements are met with disbelief, and if it keeps going, Obama could be presented with a security problem that has few equals.
