Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Obama’s ‘Big Prize’ to Earn Nobel Peace Prize
By Nicola Nasser*
Indeed, US President Barak Obama has gone a long way to
earn his Nobel Peace Prize, which was prospectively and in advance awarded in
2009 to the 44th president of the United States while less than
eight months in office.
However, Obama’s “big prize” to make him “feel that I
deserve” the Nobel Prize as he had said then will be waiting for him until he
ends the ongoing Israeli war on the Palestinian people and occupation of their
land, at least since 1967.
This Israeli war lies at the heart of both the wars Obama
inherited as well as those he has just averted and has been all along the
source of regional wars, instability and insecurity as well as the source of
the deep-rooted anti-Americanism in the Middle East .
To his credit, President Obama, true to his promise to
“end a decade of wars,” wound up the war on Iraq ,
now coordinating winding down his country’s war on Afghanistan
next year and twice this year he has navigated successfully to avert and avoid
dragging his country into wars on Syria
and Iran
It doesn’t matter much whether Obama has gone thus far out
of principle or under the pressures of the financial crisis in his country and
the emerging geopolitical realities internationally and regionally in the Middle East .
Pressures would be more likely an interpretation if one is
to judge by his shift from his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call
on Syrian rebels not to disarm with the aim of enforcing a regime change in
Syria to the US co-sponsoring now the upcoming Geneva – 2 conference on January
22 for a political solution of the Syrian conflict.
But the “out of principle” interpretation seems more
likely if one is to judge by the AP wire story about the background of the Iran
deal, which revealed that Obama was conducting “secret talks” with Iran for
about a year before the election last summer of the Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani, to whose “moderation” a lot of credit was attributed for the success
of negotiating the deal.
It is true that Obama’s ongoing “drone war” on Yemen,
Pakistan and elsewhere, his “leading from behind” in the NATO-led war on Libya,
his “warships diplomacy” and “sanctions war” on Syria, Iran and of late on
Egypt all vindicate calls for rescinding his Nobel prize, but ending the
ongoing Israeli war on the Palestinian people remains his only daring peace
move that will tip the balance to his credit for good.
Except for his failure to deliver on his promise to close
the Guantanamo Bay
Long before his opposition to the US-led war on Iraq in 2003, Obama came of political age in the campus anti-nuclear movement of
the 1980s and was elected as an anti-war figure; at a presidential campaign
debate in South Carolina in 2007 he spoke
about meetings with the leaders of Iran ,
North Korea
After his new START treaty with Russia
cutting down the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, disarming Syria of its
chemical arsenal and restricting Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes,
disarming Israel of its nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction remains
the litmus test which will determine the credibility of Obama’s endeavor “for a
world without nuclear weapons” and will qualify him to “deserve” the Nobel
Peace Prize.
After the signing of the four-page “Joint
Plan of Action” interim nuclear deal between Iran and the 5-plus-1 partners in
Geneva on this November 24, “He can now also say he has avoided a third war,” according
to Bruce O. Riedel, a former administration official who is a senior fellow at
the Brookings Institution, quoted by The New York times last Monday.
However the “third war” has been raging
bloodily and mercilessly for less than three years now in Syria, “led from
behind” by his administration and either openly armed, financed and
logistically supported by the US regional Qatari, Saudi and Turkish allies or
proxies, it doesn’t matter which, or away from media spotlights by the US
Israeli strategic ally.
Partnering with Russia to conclude the January 22 Geneva – 2 conference
with a successful political solution of the Syrian conflict, by drying up the
regional sources of arms and money that fuel the conflict, will be Obama’s
“small prize” towards earning his Nobel prize.
But his “big prize” will remain tied to ending the sixty
five-year old Israeli war on the Palestinian people.
Israel’s warmongering against Iran,
Syria, Lebanese Hezbullah and Palestinian anti-Israeli occupation resistance
movements besieged in the Gaza strip stands isolated in the face of a consensus
by the world community on pursuing Obama’s pledge that “diplomacy would
continue” because, as he said last Sunday, “we cannot close the door on diplomacy, and we cannot rule
out peaceful solutions to the world's problems.”
“The plan of
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu … has been to launch a massive military assault on Iran
Netanyahu condemned the Iran deal as an “historic mistake;”
he stated that “Israel is not bound by the agreement” and has the right to
“defend itself by itself” before sending his cabinet minister Naftali Bennett to Capitol Hill to rally Congress
against the White House and the State Department and calling on American Jews
to oppose the policies of Obama’s government. Netanyahu leaves no doubt that he
is well determined to abort the Iran
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit,
West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com
