Obama is having a whirlwind week at the UN, and probably finding out its useless.
President Obama challenged the world to take a more active role in solving the world’s problems in a blunt address Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly.
“If we are honest with ourselves, we need to admit that we are not living up to that responsibility,” Obama said in his first speech to the world body.
Obama reminded U.N. members that his administration has sought “a new era of engagement with the world” after the more unilateral foreign policy of the Bush era.
Obama stressed that means that other nations must step up to the plate.
“Those who used to chastise American for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” he said.
Obama outlined some of the world’s problems and the work facing the U.N.
“Extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world,” Obama said. “Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations. Persistent poverty and pandemic disease.”
Obama added, “I say this not to sow fear, but to state a fact: the magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our actions.”
But the president has already had a taste of just how difficult it can be to resolve problems, even with countries where the U.S. has great influence.
On Tuesday, he brought together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the hope that a high-profile meeting might move them toward resuming peace talks. Although they shook hands, neither Netanyahu nor Abbas would yield on their key disputes, but the two sides did agree to enter another period of brief but intense negotiations.
Obama also addressed climate change on Tuesday, another issue where the U.S. needs the cooperation of both industrialized and developing countries. He offered no new proposals, but told delegates at the climate change summit that the U.S. is determined to make upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen in December a success.
His speech to the General Assembly seemed aimed at a problem of the U.N. environment — the pervasive atmosphere of inertia in a body that has been widely criticized as a diplomatic talking shop with endless discussion but little action.
“Just as no nation can wall itself off from the world, no one nation — no matter how large, no matter how powerful — can meet these challenges alone,” Obama said.
Obama held a separate meeting Wednesday with the new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama. He meets later in the day with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
this is a turnaround from the Bush administration’s view of the world. Bush went from saying the UN was irrelevant to begging for its assistance. I think that Pres. Obama is going to have a much better relationship with the world at large. Whether or not that works out for the world’s benefit remains to be seen, but it is obvious that the Bush administration’s outlook did little for the world.
Comparisons between Bush and Obama may seem irrelevant at this time, but let’s face it our relationships with the world are not the best. We certainly have enough people who no longer trust us. I see even Omar Qaddafi is on the stage at this moment telling the UN that it sucks and is pretty much irrelevant in the fact that nothing gets done. “People make speeches and disappear” Qaddafi said. To that degree he is right. He also stated that 65 wars have broken out since the inception of the UN. Wars are not supposed to happen unless they are to the benefit of the world according to the UN charter. But I think we know that a solid joke.
Don’t get the idea that I am siding with Omar Qaddafi, but let’s face it he had a couple good points. The UN does suck and it is absolutely worthless
