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Obama Set to Bankrupt US, Appease Foes

Wrongheaded policies to be on display at UN, G20 meetings

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 22, 2009 7:08 AM CDT

(Newser) – President Obama's agenda can be summed up as "beggar thy neighbor, bankrupt thy country, and appease thy foe," as can be seen in his plans for summit meetings this week, Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal. The president chairs a UN Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament this week but won't focus on any particular country, Stephens writes, an approach so broad it seems to suggest that disarming France is as important as preventing Iran and North Korea from having nuclear weapons.

Obama won't play hardball on Iran, Stephens writes, but he was happy to do so with Chinese tiremakers, introducing the kind of protectionist measures that the G20 should be tackling when they meet in Pittsburgh this week. Instead, Stephens writes, the meetings will be given over to discussing issues like banker's pay, while also ignoring the "exploding" debt-to-GDP ratios of the G20 nations. America's, he notes, is among the worst and set to rise higher with Obama's policies.

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"Is Nicolas Sarkozy, with his force de frappe, about to start World War III?" Stephens asks "Probably not, though he has the means to do so." (AP Photo/Thierry Chesnot, File Pool)

The Security Council meeting,"will focus on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any particular countries," UN Ambassador Susan Rice says. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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Should Mr. Obama join hands with Iran and the Arab world in pushing for Israel's nuclear disarmament, on the view that if only the Jewish state would set the right example its enemies would no longer want to wipe it off the map? - Bret Stephens

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Obama Set to Bankrupt US, Appease Foes