Barack Obama’s presidency has had profoundly negative consequences for our national security. From debilitating cuts in defense budgets, to gutting national missile defense efforts, to his unwillingness to acknowledge a continuing war against terrorism, to his inability to stem the nuclear proliferation threats posed by North Korea and Iran....the picture is bleak.

David Ignatius has yet another Iran leak from the White House. Here’s the gist: Obama told his close buddy Turkish PM Erdogan to tell his close buddy Ayatollah Khamenei that as long as Iran doesn’t seek nuclear weapons, Obama’s cool with them keeping their nuclear program.

With the threat of a veto hanging over its head, the National Defense Authorization bill heads to the House floor today for debate. Among the provisions are several dealing with the question of a nuclear weapons armed Iran, and what the United States should do to avert a crisis, prepare to handle the threat, or eliminate the threat altogether.

It’s folly to expect Beijing to seriously help in curbing Pyongyang.

There are arguments to be made as to why an Israeli strike now on Iran’s nuclear program would be ill conceived. There are even arguments to be made for a containment regime. I may not agree with those arguments, but they represent a point of view grounded in an honest assessment of reality.

Bad as Obama's policies are for America, they are equally dangerous for friends who have relied for decades on the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a foundation of their own national security strategies.

 I have long wondered whether Obama, desperate to distract the electorate from his feckless economic policies, would consider the military option to strike Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The answer to that appears to be, no, if not hell no.

Heads of state and foreign ministers from 50-plus countries will gather next week in Seoul, South Korea, to discuss the threat of nuclear terrorism, a follow-up to the first “nuclear-security summit” convened two years ago in Washington by President Obama.