Some quick thoughts from Prague, where President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev have just signed the new START treaty, with a pledge to reduce their nuclear arsenals by 30 per cent over the next 7 years.
1) This was a good day for President Obama. One year in office, and plenty of inspiring foreign policy talk, but, until now, little to show for it. Now, at last, he has a tangible achievement to his name, and started to earn that embarrassingly premature Nobel Peace Prize.
2) It's not necessarily a done deal. Russia remains wary about America's plans for a missile defence shield in Europe. And the treaty needs to be ratified in the both the Duma and the Senate. The former is probably a formality, but the latter is not. President Obama will need a two-third majority vote in the Senate, which means he needs some Republican support. Remember the health-care debate?
3) The chemistry between President Obama and President Medvedev seems good. At least, an improvement on Bush and Putin. In the press conference after the treaty signing, the two leaders seemed to emphasis their common ground, even on issues, like Iran, or Missile Defence, where they don't see completely eye to eye.
4) For America, today is an important part of a process. The real fear is nuclear proliferation (Iran again) and the possibility of nuclear weapons following into the hands of radical groups. These are concerns that President Obama will be working on in the coming weeks. But he needed to show other countries that America is taking its own obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty seriously, and working to reduce its own arsenal.
5) Prague, on a glorious spring day. Is there a more beautiful city?
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![[QODLink]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2012/5/24/2012524105149565734_16.jpg "The Brotherhood and Mubarak")
