Obama at the UN.

• Author: Jones, David T.
• Position: Barack Obama in United Nations General Assembly

The annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly features "show and tell" speeches by world leaders polishing their pet rocks. Illustratively, the Canadian Prime Minister advanced Ottawa's candidacy for an alternating seat on the Security Council, and the Iranian President declared that the United States had orchestrated the 9/11 attack on itself to justify wars against Islamic states.

For his part, the president offered a state-of-the-world assessment. He ranged from the ongoing global economic struggle (putting in a plug for creating jobs) to disarmament, the environment/climate change, and a status report on Iraq/Afghanistan. He repeated the slightly moth-eaten proposal to Iran to engage with the many offers to cooperate on nuclear nonproliferation, but it had an almost perfunctory, check-the-box delivery.

However, the core of speech focused on efforts to create peace in the Middle East and promote democracy globally. Building on the recently renewed direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and incorporating U.S. stimulus for progress, the Middle East implicitly was first priority. Bowing to realism, however, the...