It’s a good exercise for world leaders to remember those horrific bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to learn critical lessons from them. But the President and I disagree on the lessons to be learned.

In his remarks at Hiroshima, President Obama avoided delivering an outright apology for America’s use of atomic bombs to finally break the brutal war machine of Imperial Japan—a decision that won and ended a just war. Even so, the speech raises three unsettling issues.

The first visit to Hiroshima by a sitting US head of state reminds us that the end of war is peace

The United States and NATO have zero tolerance for the use of nuclear weapons and would exact a punishing response against Russian leadership and/or military facilities ensuring there would be no second strike, to put it lightly. At least, this is what the U.S. government should make Waterford-crystal-clear.

Last week’s startling confession by White House operative Ben Rhodes—that the Obama administration lied to the American people about its dealings with Iran to secure a nuclear agreement—not only confirms the perception of a mendacious and arrogant presidency. It exposes a feverish and even delusional frame of mind: an uncompromising revulsion for war that has undermined American security and invited a cascade of extremism, violence, and human suffering.

If one actually looks at the risks of nuclear war as well as the likelihood of proliferation at the start of the President’s term compared to now, the Obama’s nonproliferation record earns a failing grade. This becomes clear when one reflects on the Russian nuclear posture, the much ballyhooed Iran deal, and the situation in nuclear North Korea.

It was a terrible anniversary. Seventy years ago this past week, at zero eight fifteen hours, August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay, a U.S. Army Air Force B-29, dropped an 8,900-pound bomb, dubbed “Little Boy”, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb, Fat Man, fell upon Nagasaki.