Barack Obama has not achieved any peace yet, neither between Israel and the Palestinians, nor between Iran and the world, nor between his country and the fighters in Afghanistan. He is a man of good intentions, as he declares in his speeches, which are accompanied by a desire to resolve conflicts through peaceful means. But the intentions of he who dwells in the White House alone are not enough to change the intentions of others, and to drive them to help him spread the culture of peace. On the contrary, the stances of others could strike at the well-intentioned president's Achilles' heel, if those others do not respond to his positive stances with similar ones. The new political climate which Barack Obama's victory has spread around the world is what seems to have driven the Nobel Prize Committee to grant him this exceptional honor without him having yet achieved any actual achievement for which he would deserve being granted the medal of peace. Even in the field of nuclear disarmament, which Obama made a slogan for his presidency, the United States cannot take a bold step such as this one if it is not accompanied by a similar international response from the other nuclear powers. In this sense, one can say that the award condemns George W. Bush's presidency and his policies more than it honors Barack Obama. Yet such an honor could turn into the opposite if Obama's presidency were to end with the crises he inherited from his predecessor remaining as they are, not because he does not have the intention to resolve them, but because others have considered – and continue to consider – that his winning the election represents a defeat for America and a victory for their plans, driving them to be stringent towards the concessions necessary for peace. It is enough to simply review the reactions expressed yesterday over Barack Obama being granted this award. The Taliban movement considered that the US President had not taken a single step towards peace or for the purpose of making Afghanistan a more stable country. It suggested awarding him the Nobel Prize “for escalating violence and killing civilians”. The Hamas movement considered that Obama must walk a long road before deserving the Nobel Peace Prize, as he has only put forth promises and has contributed nothing to world peace, and as he has done nothing to achieve justice in the issues of Arabs and Muslims. The Islamic Jihad found the prize political, lacking credibility and not ruled by principles of values and ethics, especially as “Obama's soldiers” – as it described them – continue to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for Iran, its reaction lacked direct attacks against the US President, although one of President Ahmadinejad's advisors expressed hopes that the Nobel Prize will represent an incentive for Obama to walk a path that would achieve justice and end oppression in the world. Obama may well have been the first to be surprised at being granted the Nobel Prize. Indeed, he realizes that, in the face of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and its President Ahmadinejad, in the face of Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden, and in the face of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, the peace he aims for will be difficult to reach. And if there is a lesson to be learned from these first nine months in office, and especially in the three blazing crises in Afghanistan, Palestine and the predicament with Iran, it is that these inherited crises are difficult to resolve, and that changing the means of resolving them will not necessarily lead to America healing from its difficulties and coming out of these crises at the least possible cost. It is unprecedented for someone to receive the Nobel Peace Prize as a reward for their good intentions. Former US presidents who were honored in the past had had historical achievements. Theodore Roosevelt had helped realize a peace agreement between Russia and Japan. Woodrow Wilson had played a major role in establishing the League of Nations. As for Jimmy Carter, he was considered responsible for the Camp David Accords, which were a historical milestone in the Arab-Israeli conflict, regardless of their consequences. In this sense, the prize awarded to Obama will be a burden for him, and it is from now on his duty to prove that he deserves it. Without this, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize would have gone to waste, and with it the nearly one million and a half dollars that will go into Obama's pocket, being the amount of the prize.
