Security Council Unanimously Adopts Arms Control Measure

Security Council Approves Arms Control Measure – NPR [link]

• Obama called the U.N. measure "historic" said it represents "our shared commitment to a goal of a world without nuclear weapons." 
• Listen to the audio of President Obama's UN Security Council speech below:

• Diplomats said the U.N.'s most powerful body will vote unanimously Thursday on a draft resolution calling for stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament and "reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism."
• Obama aides see the resolution that will be adopted at the meeting as an endorsement of the president's entire nuclear agenda, as laid out in his April speech in Prague in which he declared his commitment to "a world without nuclear weapons."

Obama Makes Gains at UN on Iran and Proliferation – New York Times [link]

• President Obama, in his first visit to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, made progress Wednesday on two key issues, wringing a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and securing support from Moscow and Beijing for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear weapons.
• “I told His Excellency Mr. President that we believe we need to help Iran to take a right decision,” Mr. Medvedev said, adding that “sanctions rarely lead to productive results, but in some cases, sanctions are inevitable.”
• Click here to read the remarks made by President Obama and President Medvedev after the bilateral meeting.

Obama Presents Himself to the UN - Global Zero's Queen Noor on Countdown with Keith Olbermann

• Queen Noor: "The only way to avoid or to prevent the nuclear threat increasing is in fact to eliminate all nuclear weapons. There is no in between and we are very close to a nuclear tipping point in which it will be impossible to reign in the dangers in terms of nuclear terrorism, in terms of non-state actors, or even the accidents that have occurred and affected so many millions of people over the years."
• Note: Global Zero is a Ploughshares Fund grantee.
• Watch the full interview below:

A View from the Dark Side

Why Democrats Fail at Arms Control - Stephen Rademaker in the Wall Street Journal [link]

• But Mr. Obama's ambitious arms-control agenda is in trouble. To students of arms control, this comes as no surprise. Every Democratic president for the past 40 years has come into office committed to negotiating deep nuclear reductions with Russia. Each has left office without success.
• The principal reason that recent Democratic presidents have failed with Russia has been their excessive enthusiasm and ambition, which perversely encourages the Russians to overreach, dooming prospects for agreement.
• This was a problem for Messrs. Carter and Clinton. And it promises to be an even bigger problem for Mr. Obama, who comes to office with an arms-control agenda—the abolition of nuclear weapons—far more ambitious that of any previous administration.