Obama's UN Speech, Too Bad The US Didn't Listen

On Tuesday President Obama addressed the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, and even by Obama's high standards of oratory, it was an excellent speech. In it Obama made pledges to fight climate change, terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. But more than those lines - which really are the kind of things you expect he'd say in a speech of that magnitude - Obama called on the members of this global body to set aside their petty arguments and actually act together in the best interests of the world on these matters. And if you follow the goings on at the UN at all, then you know that far too often countries turn the UN into a platform to make silly points for consumption in their homelands rather than staying true to the mission of the UN - working together to find solutions to global problems.

So it was great that Obama made ending the pettiness that infects so many UN debates a key point of his speech. It's just too bad our own UN delegation, along with many of our closest allies, ignored him. Just hours later the United States delegation, as well as a number of our allies, all dramatically walked out during the address of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Afterwards the US delegation said they walked out to protest the "hateful, offensive, anti-Semetic rhetoric," of Pres. Ahmadinejad. If you ask me, that's a pretty flimsy excuse for a huge act of public rudeness. Not that I'm endorsing anything Ahmadinejad said, actually I missed his speech, but that's also my point. Going into his address I could give you a pretty decent outline of what he would say: he'll make some controversial remark about Israel, he'll accuse the United States and Great Britain of neo-colonialism and oppressing people around the world, and will defend Iran's right to pursue nuclear research.

I know it, our diplomats know it and anyone who follows the actions of Ahmadinejad know it - that's his schtick. Which makes our walk-out of his speech even more childish, since our diplomats certainly can't claim to be "shocked" at Ahmadinejad giving basically the same speech he's been giving for the past few years.

Obama was right, if the United Nations is ever to live up to it's promise as a global organization, then its members need to stop acting so childish. It's just too bad our own diplomats didn't listen to what he was saying.