CHINA

The Nuclear Summit -- a major event, a life and death meeting -- it isn't front and center in the media, in conversations today, but it ought to be.

Leaders of the 46 countries that Obama needed to be there, were there. (North Korea, Libya and Syria weren't there -- they'd expressed that they wouldn't cooperate. Israel last minute, couldn't attend. )

Good things happened. Obama, in his extraordinarily diplomatic, skillful way, managed to get everyone agreeing that it was important to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Canada, Chile and Ukraine actually pledged to reduce their stocks of enriched uranium, and all the countries agreed to use UN economic sanctions on Iran, if Iran continued to enrich uranium.

(Canada, our friendly neighbor, was endangering us, enriching itself by selling enriched plutonium to some of the countries that were hell-bent on creating nuclear weapons.)

Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of the summit was Obama getting a promise from China's President, Hu Jintao, to join negotiations on finding ways to force Iran to stop its nuclear program.

Joining negotiations suggested a soft-voiced, "yes, I'll try to help," but it's a step in the right direction.

President Hu Jintao is not only the President of the People's Republic of China, he's also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. And China has become a major world power, second to the United States.

If we are going to protect our country, and the rest of the world from a nuclear holocaust, we surely need, we must have China's support, BUT ... is Mr. Hu Jintao a friend or an enemy?

He's run things in China for eight years. What about human rights in China? The Tiananmen Massacre of protesters -- laws that restrict Chinese families from having more than one child, the tainted imports that continue -- lead painted toys, jewelry. tainted fish, pet food that kills pets -- mine disasters in Chinese coal districts that kill more than 2600 miners every year -- executions of criminals, more than a 1000 a year in China, while the entire rest of the world executed 700?

What do the Chinese really feel about bombs that can destroy civilization as we know it? They think differently from us -- their regard for human life is different from ours.

Yes, we have Barack Obama, a statesman, in our White House, who thinks ahead, and knows all the pros, cons, and possibilities.

Commentators are saying .. "good luck. Charlie (Obama)." They say-- "Iran, which our own State Department identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world, in less than a year will have enough enriching uranium to make a bomb."

They remind us --"Israel wasn't at the summit -- they're too busy threatening, echoing the threats of Syria. who wasn't at the summit, who's just been discovered transferring lethal Scud missiles to Hezbollah, the Middle East's most powerful non-state terrorist force."

Of course the commentators mention Kim Jong II, North Korea's nutty dictator, who'll kill to get a killer bomb.

They say, "Not on the Summit's agenda was Pakistan's plutonium production, that's adding to the world's stockpile of fissile material every day. And Pakistan says its fighting Taliban while it's home to Al-Qaeda."

They sigh wistfully, negatively, summing up the summit: "Canadian uranium is secured. A non-binding communique has been issued. And a 'work plan' has been agreed to, and there will be another summit in two years. The dream lives on."

I say: "Obama dreamed when he was a student, 27 years ago, of a weapons-free world, and what he dreams -- he implements."