“We
will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s
summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our
sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”They’re
not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s
because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are
why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity
— if the words signal action.The millennium goals, for those
of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact.
They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is
to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000,
but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact.
Halve it, he says, then end it.
A.