The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
The comment from Thorbjoern Jagland made me chuckle because it remains me, in a way, to what people were saying about Obama during the campaign season. Many people that I talked to did not really know what Obama wanted to do or how he was going to do it, but all they really knew what that he was a great speaker, liked what he said, and he gave them hope. However, when I pressed them into gave reasons why they like what Obama is going to do, i.e., his policies, they could not answer me, but resorted to their fondness of his speeches, and they felt "hopeful." I guess Jagland is the same way; who care what Obama is really doing, so long as he says it well (which as we know, without a teleprompter Obama can't give a speech).
Personally, I don't feel "hopeful" and what is interesting there are some countries in this world, particularly Israel, Poland, and the Czech Republic, who are not hopeful about the future because of Obama's speeches and promises. He has thrown Israel under the bus and screwed over the Poles and Czechs because he does not want to hack-off Russia, but they counting on having a missile system to shut down possible Iran nukes.
Let us examine Obama's "peace" achievements:
Has Obama successfully undermine US foreign policy and thrown its Allies under the bus? Yes.
Has Obama done anything substantive to bring about any change in the peace situation in the Middle East? No.
Has he done anything substantive to change the peace situation with North Korea? No.
Has he done anything substantive to change the situation with Iran? No.
Or Venezuela? No.
So again I ask, "What has Obama really done to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?" Appears to me, and even to the Nobel Committee, nothing, but he makes me people feel hopeful. So? It is one thing to give people hope through action, actual substantive actions that result in real positive change, and another thing for someone just to talk about things and make feel hopeful. In my opinion, Obama has done nothing to deserve the Peace Prize because it should be awarded on actual merit, not on how he makes people feel.
Hi Kiel,
ReplyDeleteI stumbled on your blog and hope you don’t mind my commenting. It’s always interesting to read work by people one knows.
Even though we seem to have very different moral and political viewpoints, I agree that Obama probably didn’t deserve the Peace Prize. At the end of your post you’ve provided five reasons for thinking Obama has done little to achieve peace. Unfortunately, you haven’t provided any support for those reasons. For example, how has Obama undermined foreign policy? As president, Obama sets foreign policy along with the help of his advisers. That’s what he was elected to do. It’s not clear how he’s done anything to undermine his own policy, which is by default the US’s policy. It’s certainly true that Obama has done some things that are inconsistent with the previous administration’s policy or the policy suggested by pundits, but there’s nothing suspect about that.
Or how is it that the US has “thrown our allies under the bus”? You don’t provide any examples. To the contrary, the US’s relationship with our traditional allies – western European nations, say – have grown somewhat stronger since Obama took office. (Compare that to the Bush administration’s explicitly ignoring the French and Germans as “old Europe”.)
You’re also ignoring Obama’s significant achievements with North Korea and Iran. Take, for example, the changes in Iran’s nuclear program over the past week. Because of the sort of diplomatic efforts Obama has supported and been involved in, Iran has agreed to inspections of their nuclear facilities. That doesn’t eliminate the threat Iran may pose – though that threat has most likely been grossly overstated by pundits in the US – but it’s a more promising approach than the US has adopted in the recent past. Similar comments apply to negotiations with North Korea that have occurred under Obama’s watch.
The same also applies to Obama’s approach to the Mid East generally. His speech in Turkey earlier this year marked a sea change in US policy towards Islam by explicitly stating that we aren’t at war with a religion, but instead are at war with fundamentalist interpretations of that religion. Of course Obama hasn’t solved many of the problems between Muslims (or Muslim nations) and the West. That’s a tough task to handle in decades; Obama has been in office for less than a year. Few of those problems are likely to ever be solved, period. Faulting Obama for that is unfair in the extreme.
In short, it seems that the common problem with your criticisms here is that you’re setting the bar for success unreasonably high. Obama isn’t the final solution to the world’s problems, nor will he ever be. No reasonable person ever stated as much. Obama is a politician and can achieve some moderate goals in his four to eight years in office. He isn’t a savior, and so holding him to the standard of a savior is completely unwarranted.
As a friendly suggestion in closing, you really should proofread your posts more carefully. For example, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, not the “Noble” peace prize. You should start looking to more (and more reliable) news sources as well. Fox News isn’t always the best place to go for accurate reporting or reasonable analysis. Take a look at a newspaper like The Economist for a start. As an epistemologist, you no doubt recognize that one shouldn’t rely on one source exclusively since doing so can easily lead one to credulity and dogmatism.
Keep up the interesting blog though.