Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. He did not win it in recognition of what he has done so far, but for what he has said and declared. He will perhaps win it again if he succeeds in ridding the world of its nuclear weapons, if he manages to bring the American troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and from dozen other countries, and if he should miraculously succeed in peacefully resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on the two-state solution. I have full confidence in the peaceful intentions of the U.S President, and in his disinclination to pursue the dream, or rather the nightmare of spreading the dominion of the American empire around the world. Nonetheless, both I and the reader also have good intentions, but know that we do not have the means necessary to match those with affirmative action. But as for Barack Obama, he has the ability, desire and the means to do so, and as such, it remains for him to begin putting his intentions into practice. Meanwhile, it was notable that the prize's winner was announced while the American president had not yet decided in what regards the following issue: will he increase the number of U.S troops in Afghanistan by 40 thousand as the military is requesting, or will he focus the coalition's efforts on combating al-Qaeda using the predator drones – the latter being the view shared by the majority of the civilians around the President including the senior figures in the National Security Council (an issue that I will return to shortly). In fact, the Nobel Committee deserves a Nobel Prize itself for choosing Obama, whom the committee praised for his extraordinary efforts in promoting international diplomacy and cooperation among peoples. In other words, the committee was “diplomatically” praising his penchant towards democratic pluralism. This is following George W. Bush's unilateralism which fought losing wars, and which contributed to increasing terrorism around the world after it had declared war against it, antagonizing the majority of the world's population against the United States – which was hitherto considered by people around the world to be a leader in human rights and in all other freedoms. The Nobel Prize Committee logically justified their choice by citing Obama's stance on nuclear disarmament, and this is understood and expected. For me personally however, the merit for this prize in Obama's nine months in the White House stems from his speech at the Cairo University last June, when he extended his hand to the Islamic World and promised it cooperation rather than confrontation, and was so sincere in this that some of the audience shouted “we love you, Obama” – something that was impossible to happen with the war president George W. Bush for instance. Also, I read that Barack Obama is the first sitting U.S President to win the Nobel Prize since Woodrow Wilson in 1919. In fact, the last two U.S Nobel Laureate leaders in this decade were democrats: the former U.S President Jimmy Carter in 2002 and the former Vice President Al Gore in 2007. When I read the New York Times and the Washington post at about ten in the morning London time, the front page in both newspapers had not yet run the story about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But in the Op-Ed page in the Washington Post, there was an article written by the extremist Likudnik Charles Krauthammer entitled “Young Hamlet's Agony” about Obama's reluctance to escalate the war in Afghanistan or to focus the combat against al-Qaeda, as I mentioned in a previous paragraph, and which was the subject of my column in the same day. But then the news about Obama winning the Nobel Prize was published, striking a blow against Charles Krauthammer. Of course, I chose to compare between the two options [regarding the war in Afghanistan], and minimally expressed an opinion in that regard, while Krauthammer was openly rooting for escalation; he reminded Obama of his statement that the war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity and not a war of choice. Krauthammer and his fellow neo-conservatives and apologists for Israel support every war against Arabs and Muslims, in Afghanistan yesterday and today, and against Iraq, the civilians in Gaza and Lebanon in the summer of 2006. They are still mongering for more wars, killing and destruction and cannot see because of their extremism and blindness that inciting Israel also means the death of more Jews in an ongoing confrontation, since Israel will never be able to impose its will on the Palestinians, and on 300 million Arabs and 2.5 billion Muslims behind them. It is for these reasons that I believe Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize to be a slap in the face of the Israel gang, along with the neo-conservatives and the departed Bush administration, which no one mourns. I can go even further and say that Obama did not win as much as the policy of his predecessor lost, and ended up being convicted in the court of international public opinion, like Israel itself these days. In the end, I say congratulations to President Obama, and I hope that the Arabs and the rest of the world will see his words being matched with deeds and actions on the ground that serve the cause of peace throughout the world.
