President Barack Obama says he wants to visit the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime during his presidency, but will not have time when he travels to Japan later this week.

In an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Mr. Obama said he would be honored to have the opportunity to visit the two cities that were devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

If he does, Mr. Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The math here isn’t hard. Of course, he’s going to take any visit to those cities as an opportunity to discuss nuclear disarmament, while countries like Russia and Iran chortle and snicker. Whether he brings the greek pillars with him is uncertain. In order to accomplish this, he faces a mammoth hurdle, one that has been argued and debated for decades: apologizing for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, how could he possibly argue that the use of the bomb was justified, or refuse to address the use, if he’s busy trying to use his magical Hope Dust to make all the nuclear weapons of the world vanish into thin air?

Obama has hardly been vacillatory in wringing his hands in guilt over the country that elected him to its highest office. However, if he makes this gesture, it will just be the cherry on top of a weakness sundae that he’s been serving the world since his inauguration. Chavez is currently talking about war with Colombia because he’s seen us flinch. Iran is toying with nuke talks because they know our leader didn’t even have the backbone to address the slaughter of protesters. And Russia? One minute Obama says the missile shield in Poland is dead, the next Biden is planning another. You can imagine what they’re thinking…and what we all should be thinking…