Obama and the Noble Prize

U.S. President Barak Obama was awarded the 2009 Noble Peace Prize by the Swedish Academy. Many people in the world were bewildered for or say surprised over awarding this prize for President Obama, including the President himself.

Perhaps the reason behind the bewilderment was that, until then, President Obama did not actually make a tangible achievement, with regard to world peace.

No doubt, this was not the first time, when an American President is awarded with a Noble prize.  Before Obama, Noble Prize was given to the former US President Jimmy Carter, in recognition of his role in signing of the so-called Egyptian- Israeli peace treaty, between Egypt and the Zionist entity.

However, an interpretation for granting the Noble prize to President Obama, can be put only in two frames: the first was the political discourse, adopted by President Obama since he took over the leadership of the strongest country in the world.  A discourse which had almost been distanced from the policy adopted  by the USA since  the aftermath of World War II ,  based on the use of force or  the threat of  using force in political dealing with  World countries.  An attitude which had been already consolidated, when the USA launched six largest major wars, since that date, resulted in huge victims, whose numbers exceeded number of victims of the First World War. The Six wars were: The Korean war in 1950 through 1953; the war of Vietnam which lasted from 1964 to 1975; the First Gulf War in 1991; up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Prior to the last war was the US invasion of Afghanistan, not to mention the wars   that were ignited or fueled by the USA, including   the Iran-Iraq War, and more than 30 wars in Latin America or Africa.

 This, ultimately, means that the USA is classified as a world champion in launching wars. If there were a Noble prize for launching wars, it would be won by the USA.  The second frame, which is more likely, in my view, is a bid as to  push the U.S. president to adopt a more practical international peace statement and to make a shift from the statement of intentions to  a practical conduct .

Besides,  the U.S. president is also required , in his capacity  as  President , and the key role played by the USA at the international level ,to  disclose a new concept into the  American political culture ,  based on a  new American approach, different  from  the common American policy. This very new concept is based on the language of dialogue instead of the language of force, on serving mutual interests with other partners instead of the supreme interests of the United States of America, and voicing respect for international legitimacy instead of using the American veto.

President Obama is able to invest in this Nobel Prize by making out of it an American message of peace and forgiveness to the world  a message that would make lot of peoples, especially those who suffered from the American wars, to enjoy security and safety, following years of repression, murders and pains.

Dr. Khalaf al-Moftah