Really Pissed Off!

Aside from President Obama, no one was more surprised than I was when I heard the news that he had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” It appears that he was nominated twelve days after taking Office in January, but the vote was taken recently. Therefore the Norwegian Nobel Award Committee has had nine months to ponder over their choice. President Theodore Roosevelt won it in 1906 for the Treaty of Portsmouth, which brought an end to the Russo-Japanese War and President Woodrow Wilson won it in 1919 for his Fourteen Points in establishing the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of The League of Nations after World War I. Both preceding Presidents had accomplished objectives which were far and above the duties of their Office. Why President Obama?

Although the Nobel Peace prize Committee cited his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the award appears to be one, not of merit, but a message from Europe, in particular, that the United States was about to emerge from behind the bolted door policy of the Bush Administration, and ready to engage world problems through diplomacy. Since the end of World War II, Europe has looked towards the United States for leadership, first through The Cold War and the promise of peace after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was the United States who rebuilt Europe through The Marshall Plan after World War II. It was the United States who swiftly reacted to the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948 with the Berlin Air Lift. It was the United States who stood firmly, keeping Western Europe free from the Soviet Union vision of a Communist Europe. Looking back into History, the United States has kept Western Europe safe by the show of strength and by its diplomacy. Both the Camp David Accords in 1978, which attempted to resolve the Israel Palestinian conflict and The Dayton Accord of 1995 establishing a form of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were designed through diplomacy by Washington D.C. Although we have had a checkered past, the U.S. has held the upper hand in world diplomacy. That is, until the Bush Administration’s decision for a unilateral approach to Foreign Affairs and the slap in the face diplomacy, which headed the U.S. in some quarters, towards a “Rogue Nation” status!

The Nobel Peace Prize Award was strictly a message to the United States, welcoming us back into our role of chief negotiator, using diplomacy in place of guns. It may have been awarded to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, had she won the Presidency and brought back the U.S. to the table, where problems are settled by diplomacy and not through threats or military action. Diplomacy was a center piece of the Obama’s Campaign and the world was watching. Since, taking Office, President Obama and his Administration has attempted to carry out that pledge. It not only effects Western Europe, but offers a new relationship with Russia, a key player in establishing some form of world peace. It rebuffs the Neo-Conservative approach of back seat diplomacy and the eight years of the Bush Administration. Over a fifty year period, it was the Republican Party who established America’s role as a negotiator through diplomacy. President Eisenhower, soon after his election, brought an end to the Korean War with the truce at Panmunjom. Secretary Of State John Foster Dulles sought a untied front against the Soviet Union and The Cold War through diplomacy, and a show of strength with the establishment of The Eisenhower Doctrine. It was under Richard Nixon’s Presidency what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was able break through the iron Curtain to establish a new relationship with Communist China. President Ronald Reagan was a strong believer in ”Personal Diplomacy,” which he used successfully with Milhail Gorbachev, which eventually ended The Cold War. President George H.W. Bush continued President Reagan’s policy as well as establishing the Powell Doctrine, where war is the last resort. The Democratic Administrations of Kennedy and Johnson brought us into and kept us in the Viet Nam War. The Carter Administration failed to act decisively with the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In some strange quirk of history, the tables have completely turned as a Democratic Administration has brought us back to where Republican Administrations made the United States the leader in world diplomacy.

The award, although gratefully received by President Obama, should have little effect in terms of dealing with the two wars inherited from the previous administration. The question for both Iraq and Afghanistan is how do we leave? We will have to live with whatever form of government evolves in Iraq and they will have to resolve their differences. We cannot do that for them. As for Afghanistan, which has always been the focal point of dealing with Al Qaeda, President Obama may well have to send in more troops to prevent the total collapse of the government. The War in Afghanistan is complex. The real answer is not what happens in Afghanistan. It’s what happens in Pakistan. As long as Al Qaeda can travel back and forth into the Northern Provinces, they will remain untouchable. Pakistan, up to the present, has chosen to walk a thin line between the tacit support of the Taliban and supporting the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. That has been a disaster, as the Taliban has been able to gain ground in the Northern Provinces and present a threat to Islamabad. We have to provide support for Pakistan’s efforts to regain control of that region, which is almost an impossible task. It is in Pakistan’s survival to do so. Although complete control is nearly impossible, drastically limiting the area that both the Taliban and Al Qaeda occupy and strategic strikes in Afghanistan along the Pakistan border by Allied Forces (actually U.S. Forces) may be the only way to relive the threat. We may have to re-evaluate our position on the Taliban and differentiate between those who oppose Al Qaeda and those who do not. We cannot “win” in Afghanistan. We never could. It is a tribal society and has no nationalistic identity, and the same can be said for the Northern Provinces in Pakistan. The best end results in Afghanistan would be a government, which partially controls the country in the more developed areas and tribal control in the mountain regions. We’re not going to able to leave soon, as the War has a life of its own. What we can do is to try to direct that war and diminish it. We can’t do it without the help of Pakistan. Most importantly, we must be able to be ready to leave when it’s time. That’s something that Britain, Russia and others in that past have failed to do. We will have to accept how Afghanistan tries to join the Twenty-First Century, even if it remains in the past.

President Obama’s response as “A Call To Action.”