This just in from my chrono-correspondent in Oslo.
OSLO, NORWAY, OCT. 9, 2012-The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today that is is revoking the 2009 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to American President Barack Obama.
Thorbjørn Jagland, Chair of the Nobel Committee, issued a statement on the steps of the Oslo Truck Stop and Sauna Lounge:
We announced three years ago that Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 was awarded to President Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
Sadly, three years later we see that international diplomacy is still the same old pile of reindeer do that it's always been. In the three years of soul searching that we of the Nobel Committee have done, we have been forced to admit that the United nations is a nest of tinpot dictators and inconsequential diplomats whom we would not ordinarily trust to deliver our morning newspapers, much less cast votes on the fates of nations.
Furthermore, it has become painfully obvious that the president's deliberate three-year retreat from America's leadership in the world has been disastrous for peace on the planet. This did not have to be. President Obama took conscious decisions to slash dramatically America's power, not just its military power, mainly by accelerating the wrecking of America's economy and the stability of its currency. In so doing, President Obama created a vacuum of global power that no democratic nation is able to fill.
Being Leftists one and all, we of The Commiittee have long been enamored with the concept of "soft power," so it is difficult for us to admit that we now understand that soft power can be effective in hard cases only when backed by democratic traditions undergirded by hard power. An economically bankrupt America, wallowing in enormous budgetary deficits, hampered by continuing high unemployment, focused on expanding the welfare state, has been incapable of effectively influencing the world's hard cases for three years. It did not help matters that from its first year, the Obama administration known by the world's strongmen autocrats to be soft on human rights.
The result has been intensified chaos and misery across the globe. In the Middle East, Iraq has descended into sectarian conflict since President Obama wholly withdrew American troops. Iran has played a large part, sending Republican Guard officers and vast stores of weapons to hardline Shia insurgents in Iraq. We have strong evidence as well that Iran is arming the Sunni insurgency since chaos from any cause in Iraq works to Iran's benefit.
As for Iran, President Obama's incessant and ultimately tiresome calls for sterner international measures rapidly grew thin. It should have been obvious by spring of 2010 that practically no nation was interested in stiff sanctions against Iran, save France and Britain. But coupling them with a seriously weakened America was ineffective. President Obama's desire to 'reset' relations with a newly-puissant Russia was met with open derision there. The president's unilateral decision to cancel deployment of missile defense to Poland and The Czech republic, however salutary it may have been, was bungled so badly that Russia immediately understood that Obama had no interest in even appearing to provoke it. Despite Russia's weak words of unity against Iran, it's now entirely obvious that Russia was playing an Iran card against Europe and the United States. By his irresolution on this issue and his revulsion at using his nation's hard power, President Obama merely cemented the return of Cold War power plays in international relations while leaving Iran's nuclear program untouched.
Which brings me to the "special importance" that The Committee attached in 2009 "to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." That has proved to be only a chimera. Nuclear arsenals have not decreased across the world, not even in the United States where Obama, faced with opposition from his own party and having lost control of the US House in 2010, was unable to force reductions there. As for Russia, they certainly were not about to disarm unilaterally and gave the briefest of lip service to Obama's dream of nuclear disarmament, anyway. Elsewhere, the situation has become even more grave.
Faced with increasing insurgency-led instability in Pakistan, which has been increasing its nuclear arsenal even as it hovers barely above failed-state status, India has quietly but steadily increased its own atomic arms from a "minimal deterrence" to "flexible response" capability. North Korea promised the Obama administration it would negotiate about its nuclear arms program, and it did - incessantly, in fact, but only about trivial matters, encouraged by Obaam's willingness to consider any talking a sign of progress. All the while North Korea's arms work continued, strengthened considerably by the Obama administration's giving humanitarian aid to the Hermit Kingdom, aid that only enabled its rulers to avoid diverting resources used for the nuclear program to feeding its people. The result is that North Korea now has at least five and perhaps as many as fifteen atomic warheads and a missile program that will soon be able to deliver them.
Japan, publicly supporting the Obama administration on Korea, viewed the lack of progress with great alarm. With the most recent North Korean nuclear test only two weeks ago, Japan's covert countermeasures were announced in Tokyo just this week. It is with great sadness we learned that the only nation to be atomic bombed now itself possesses nuclear warheads. The IAEA estimates twenty-four now, with probably twelve more on the way. As Japan's government has made clear, this has come about only because no effective measures have been taken to halt North Korea's program.
We of The Committee understood in 2009 that President Obama would have to continue the war in Afghanistan for some time to come. We had high hopes that reasonable disengagement and "Afhganization" of the war would result in peace between the warlord tribes once the American imperialists had left. We see now that our hopes were just vapor. Instead of reducing America's warmaking there, President Obama announced in early 2010 the deployment of forty-five thousand more troops. Combat intensified and civilians suffered.
Yet we are forced to admit that the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency there was being defeated. Had the president stayed the course, bloody as it was, we by now would have seen an end to fierce combat in the country. Instead, repelled by higher American casualty levels, under intense pressure from the American Left and despite protests from NATO allies fighting there, Obama ordered the war effort to be wound down and American troops to be brought home. The results should have been predictable, even to us members of The Committee. As in Iraq, the absence of American hard power has resulted in chaos in Afghanistan. And as I indicated earlier, Pakistan's status is badly affected thereby. The prospect for horrific violence across both nations is real and looming. Equally terrifying is that no one knows whether security of Pakistan's atomic arms can be assured.
There is only one light shining in all the darkness of increased danger from nuclear arms. We of The Committee recognize that Iran was, indeed, finally compelled to halt work on developing nuclear weapons. This was not a concession by Iran to American diplomatic initiatives nor can credit be given to the American president. Even so, Iran's program has been halted, hopefully forever, but certainly at least for several years. And credit must be given where credit is due.
So on behalf of the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, I announce that the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the Israeli Air Force.
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