Vin Suprynowicz

In full accord on the perceived “global threat” (The AP reports), “world leaders” Tuesday endorsed President Barack Obama’s call to secure all nuclear materials around the globe within four years to keep them out of the grasp of terrorists. They offered few specifics for achieving that goal. But as 47 nations including Armenia, Morocco, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam signed on the dotted line, President Obama declared “the American people will be safer and the world will be more secure” as a result.

Hopefully the Moroccans didn’t drive too hard a bargain.

Isn’t this a bit like calling on the nation’s Boy Scout troops to give up their their heavy mortars and self-propelled guns — by 2014? How much weapons grade nuclear material do Morocco, Algeria, Argentina and Thailand have? If they’ve got any, why ask them to secure it by 2014? Wouldn’t we want them to keep it real secure starting, like … tomorrow?

Or was this just about staging a big conference where Mr. Obama could fly a bunch of flags featuring the star and crescent?

Those with some knowledge of history may recall the naval treaties of the 1920s, as well as the deal Neville Chamberlain won from Hitler in 1938, all guaranteed to prevent war. But perhaps, based on his wide experience in both military and diplomatic affairs, the half-term senator from Chicago has all his bases covered.

Mr. Obama says he called the summit to focus world attention on the threat of nuclear terrorism, a peril he termed the greatest threat facing all nations.

A terrorist group in possession of plutonium no bigger than an apple could detonate a device capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties, he pointed out.

“Terrorist networks such as al-Qaida have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it,” he told the opening session, which convened under tight security at the Washington Convention Center. “Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life and striking a major blow to global peace and stability.”

That’s odd. He may not have been the most suave or honey-voiced of leaders, but former President George W. Bush acted firmly and promptly to take the battle to the terrorists halfway around the world following the World Trade Center attack of 2001. Many — even some on the Left — remarked privately they were glad a pair of coiffed-head ivory tower novices like John Kerry and John Edwards weren’t in charge.

OK, starting in Iraq was weird. I suspect other agendas were in play. Barring explicit threats to our shores or sea lanes, I’m not sure the federal government has any authorized power to conquer other nations just because they have or want “weapons of mass destruction,” anyway. France and China have “weapons of mass destruction.” When do we invade?

But the point is that Barack Obama ran on a platform of being the anti-Bush, the Bizarro Superman opposite of George Bush, yet now Mr. Obama finally agrees al-Qaida are dangerous loons who would nuke us if they could.

So why didn’t Barack Obama name George W. Bush as his Secretary of Defense? Thanks to Bush and Cheney, al-Qaida and others of their ilk were thrown on the defensive. There may have been some justified controversy over the means adopted (I’ve always said it would be more effective to disband the TSA and just invite law-abiding Americans to carry their own guns on our planes), but America was somehow kept safe for eight years.

And what of today’s administration? Mr. Obama goes to the Middle East and bows to Arab potentates, while giving Israel — whose Air Force might be the first line of defense against jihadist nukes emanating from Iran — the back of his hand.

Mr. Obama and his Homeland Security “secretary” systematically downgrade immigration enforcement and programs designed to train local police on these shores to recognize and apprehend illegal alien infiltrators. The borders are wide open.

Even the language of the war on terror — apparently seen as fatally poisoned by its association with the reviled memory of George W. Bush — is systematically revised with a thoroughness not seen since George Orwell’s 1984, with instructions that no further reference is to be made to Islamic fascists or wahabi jihadists … we are to pretend the forces that attack us are not Muslim fundamentalist zealots, until the official response to a disgruntled Army officer of Palestinian origin who shouts praises to Allah while gunning down a dozens soldiers under his care and supervision at Fort Hood in Texas is that the fellow must have been psychiatrically disturbed.

Darn those violent video games! Too much sugar in his diet?

Heck, even the increasingly inevitable next terrorist attack, we are told, will now be called as “man-made natural calamity,” or some such doubletalk.

If we cannot acknowledge who our enemies are, why are our troops still dying in Afghanistan (while al-Qaida lays low in Pakistan, by the way)?

If our terrorist enemies could be anyone, anywhere, why not instead send our troops to New Zealand, Newfoundland, Ireland, and Amsterdam? The climate’s nicer, as is the food.