The Nuclear Security Summit: Silence on the Right

We are happy to serve you a daily summary of the day's top nuclear policy stories each morning, with excerpts from the stories in bullet form.

Stories we're following today:

Obama's Nuclear Summit: Invisible for Conservatives? - Politics Daily [link]

• On Monday and Tuesday, President Obama convened a historic gathering in Washington to deal with the most urgent threat facing the globe: nuclear terrorism.
• After Obama's summit was done, I went looking to see how prominent conservatives and Republicans were reacting to it on the Twittersphere. I found a lot of silence.
• Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Karl Rove are all active Twitterers, ever ready to share their opinions and thoughts in 140 characters or less. But none saw fit to do so regarding the nuclear security summit.
• After all, it's not easy to reconcile Obama's endeavors to save Americans from perishing in a nuclear holocaust with the argument that he's weak on national security.
• Actually, Obama's efforts in this area might be the most important actions of his presidency. And it might just be too difficult for his conservative critics to acknowledge this work -- or to thank him.

Nuke Summit Wrap: Jon Kyl Embarasses Himself - Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent [link]

• The 47-nation/three international-governance-body Washington Nuclear Security Summit has concluded. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) just yawns.
• Kyl said, "The summit’s purported accomplishment is a nonbinding communique that largely restates current policy and makes no meaningful progress in dealing with nuclear terrorism threats or the ticking clock represented by Iran’s nuclear weapons program."
• Kyl is entitled to be skeptical that any of this is meaningful. He’s not entitled to say the nuclear-security landscape is unchanged from Sunday.
• Similarly, to say that the summit represents “no meaningful progress in dealing with nuclear terrorism threats” is to ignore the fact that Chile and Canada and Mexico just agreed to swap out their highly-enriched uranium stocks and the U.S. and Russia just agreed to destroy enough plutonium for 17,000 nuclear bombs and Ukraine will eliminate all its highly-enriched uranium.

Analysis: Nuclear Terror Fight May Be Obama Legacy - The Associated Press 

• 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.
• 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.

Expert Weighs in on Pakistan and Nuclear Weapons - NPR [link]

Ambassador Richard Burt on The Daily Show - Comedy Central [link]

• Richard Burt likes the nuclear arms reduction treaty being discussed between Medvedev and Obama, but it's only a first step.

The Lighter Side

A Farewell to Arms - The Daily Show [link]

• Fox News wants you to decide if the Nuclear Security Summit logo looks similar to the flags representing Muslim nations.