John Bolton has made a cottage industry out of trying to scare people about nuclear weapons. Contrary to the subtitle of Dr. Strangelove - "how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb" - Bolton's motto seems to be "why you need to start worrying and embrace the bomb." He reiterates this point at every opportunity, most recently in a piece published in the Washington Examiner. But does he really believe that the Obama administration's modest but essential first steps towards reducing global nuclear arsenals are putting us in grave danger? I seriously doubt it.

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As President Obama's State of the Union approaches next week, it's an appropriate time to assess his record during his first year in office. On national security, he has appeared to be part-hawk, part-dove, depending on the issue. On the one hand, he has been more open to talking to our adversaries; he has successfully terminated costly Cold War-era relics like the F-22 combat aircraft; and he has shown an admirable commitment to reducing the world's arsenals of nuclear weapons - Obama the dove. On the other, he has put forward record military budgets (topped only by U.S. spending during World War II), increased U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and dramatically increased the use of air strikes from unmanned Predator drones - Obama the hawk. Or does this mix of policies represented a third way - Obama the owl - farsighted, pragmatic, and willing to use whatever tools are needed to solve the problem at hand?

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On one level I have to give him credit. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, President Obama confronted the world as it is -- and his policies as they are -- not as we wish they would be. That represented a certain kind of courage. But it missed the point. We need to aspire to eliminate wars, not to manage them better. We may fail in that effort, but we shouldn't give up from the outset.

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There was much that troubled me in President Obama's speech on Afghanistan earlier this week. But I want to focus on one point the President mentioned in passing: the costs of the war. They go far beyond the $30 billion in additional funding to pay for 30,000 more troops (as noted elsewhere, that's $1 million per soldier!).

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Joseph Cirincione has a tremendously useful piece in this week's Washington Post Outlook section (paper version on the stands tomorrow, Sunday) on "Five Myths About Iran's Nuclear Program."

There's no point in giving a blow-by-blow account of the piece -- you should read it for yourself -- but my short take on the argument is as follows:

1) Best estimates suggest that at a minimum it would take Iran 6 to 8 years to develop a usable bomb. This means there is plenty of time to engage in smart diplomacy aimed at heading off this possibility. And since there's no evidence that Iran is currently going full speed ahead towards a bomb, this timeline may be extended.

2) As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has noted, a military strike would not end Iran's nuclear program. The most likely result would be strengthened resolve among Iran's leaders and its population to get one.

3) Persuasion beats coercion as a means of stopping a nuclear weapons program. This is what worked in Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Iraq, and Brazil, and it is what is most likely to work in Iran. Sanctions may have a role, but striking a political deal that addresses Iran's security concerns and acknowledges its role as a regional power is the best way forward.

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My first reaction was "how can a guy who's only been in office for nine months win the Nobel Peace Prize?" But once I woke up and thought about it for a few minutes I realized that the honor being bestowed on President Obama is well-deserved for one very good reason: his commitment to work for a world without nuclear weapons. Not only did he commit himself to this goal in April in Prague, but he has already taken many concrete steps in the right direction by commencing new arms reduction talks with Russia; committing himself to seek ratification and entry into force of a global nuclear test ban treaty; serving as the first U.S. president ever to chair a United Nations Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament; pledging to secure all remaining "loose nukes" and nuclear bomb-making materials within four years, and holding a summit on the subject in Washington next year; and engaging in smart diplomacy by talking to Iran about getting rid of its nuclear weapons program. In short, he hasn't just talked about nuclear disarmament, he and his administration are out there working towards it every day. For this alone, his Nobel Peace Prize is well-deserved.

In today's speech to the UN General Assembly, President Barack Obama underscored his commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. The speech reiterated the steps his administration has taken or promised to take since his historic April speech in Prague, from pursuing mutual nuclear arms reductions with Russia to pressing for a global agreement banning all nuclear testing to commencing negotiations on ending all production of nuclear bomb-making materials. But perhaps the most newsworthy and important element of the address was his commitment to "complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts, and reduces the role of nuclear weapons." This means that the president intends to push back against the the clique of nuclear neanderthals in the Pentagon who would like nothing better than to tie his hands by churning out a business-as-usual statement of policy on nuclear weapons.

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President Obama's decision to chair a special session of the UN Security Council focused on nuclear disarmament is an historic step, but you wouldn't know it from reading and watching some of the media coverage that has come out in advance of this Thursday's meeting. The frame for much of the coverage on this and other key issues has been what will he accomplish this week? But that's the wrong question. The question is how will what happens this week set the stage for what needs to happen in the months and years to come. There will be no Mideast peace deal this week, nor will Iran magically agree to drop its nuclear program. But the fact that the President of the United States has chosen to put his power and prestige on the line to seek concrete steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons will yield benefits that will extend far beyond this week.

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President Obama's sensible decision to pull the plug on the Bush administration's plan put missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic has - predictably - drawn howls of protest from Republican critics who argue that it will leave the U.S. and its European allies exposed to an Iranian missile attack. While they're at it, they note that the decision somehow involves "abandoning" our Polish and Czech allies, as if the deployment of a missile defense program were the only way to cement relations with two countries that are, after all, already NATO allies covered by the U.S. defense umbrella. The details of the Obama administration's alternative approach matter, but of equal interest is whether the latest attempt by military hawks to play the "fear card" will get political traction.

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In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, Douglas Feith and Abram Shulsky have joined the chorus of neo-conservative pundits who have been criticizing the Obama administration for taking modest but essential steps towards the president's stated goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Why anyone would listen to Feith and Shulsky, who were involved in promoting bogus intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to sell the Iraq war is beyond me. But these two men and their neo-conservative cohorts -- from John Bolton to Richard Perle to Frank Gaffney -- have been receiving far too much space in our nation's op-ed pages (particularly, but not only, in the WSJ) for their ill-considered theories about nuclear weapons.

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Last week's decision by the Senate to eliminate $1.75 billion in proposed pork barrel funding for the F-22 is a step in the right direction. It is rare that the military-industrial complex loses one of these battles. But there are conflicting views as to whether this is a unique event or the beginning of a more rational approach to Pentagon budgeting. My own view is that we can build on this victory if enough people get off the sidelines and fight for better budget priorities. A positive result is by no means guaranteed, but we may not get another opportunity like this for a long while, so we need to capitalize on it.

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The Obama administration's preliminary agreement with Russia to reduce each nation's nuclear arsenal is a small step towards carrying out the president's pledge to seek a "world free of nuclear weapons." The question is, why was it so small?

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If the neocons are to be believed, Ahmadinejad's theft of the Iranian elections - and his continuing crackdown on dissent - are not the results of internal dynamics in Iran, but rather of the words of conciliation spoken by President Obama prior to the vote.

As the latest incarnation of Mitt Romney - the fire breathing hawk - put the right-wing case on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, "It is very clear that the president's policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren't working."

An excellent post by Ali Frick that ran on Think Progress earlier this week quotes Iraq-war advocates Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney asserting that Obama's willingness to talk to Iran about curbing its nuclear program has helped legitimize Ahmadinejad's regime and emboldened the "thugs" in Tehran due to "our weakness." And Robert Kagan has put in his two cents worth in today's Washington Post in an article entitled "Obama, Siding With the Regime."

What would the neocons do differently? What should be done in the face of Ahmadinejad's repression, and how will it influence efforts to stop Tehran from seeking a nuclear weapon?

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All right, maybe "fun" is an exaggeration. But the first report of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan -- created as a result of legislation sponsored by Senators James Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) -- contains far more than just the usual bureaucratic verbiage that too often characterizes documents of this sort. It includes information that is critical to determining whether it is possible to curb contractor fraud and abuse in theaters of conflict.

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President Obama's pledge to seek a world without nuclear weapons - reiterated in a speech last month in Prague - represents one of the most critical elements of his national security agenda. Nuclear weapons serve no military purpose, and the use of even one of these instruments of mass terror would cause unparalleled destruction. But that hasn't stopped a chorus of neo-conservative critics - the same folks who pushed for war with Iraq based on false claims regarding its alleged weapons of mass destruction -- from dismissing Obama's anti-nuclear agenda as "naïve," and "unrealistic."

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