Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Obama's Nobel Peace Europeanization Prize

As a follow-up to my post of 10/9/09 On President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, I want to bring attention to the perspective of Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, an Israeli expert on US policy in the Middle East, among other things. Here are some excerpts from his piece, Obama’s Nobel Prize: A blatant attempt to Europeanize US policy:

According to Alfred Nobel's will – and in contrast with other Nobel Prize committees – the members of the Nobel Prize for Peace committee are not experts, but politicians, members of the Norwegian Parliament.

Awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize – in spite of the fact that the deadline for nominations was February 1, 10 days into Obama's Administration – constitutes a transparent attempt by European politicians to bolster Obama's determination in the global arena and improve Obama's standing in the domestic arena.

They are encouraging him to sustain his efforts to endear the UN to the American people and legislators and to highlight the UN as the key formulator of international relations. They identify with – and are eager to advance – Obama's world view, as they assess it: that the superpower role of the US is over; that moral equivalence – and not moral superiority – dominates relations between the US and non Western democracies; that the West must reconcile itself to the rise of the Moslem World; that the US must desist from unilateral political and military initiatives; that the US should advance multilateral initiatives which reflect values and attitudes shared by the majority of the UN membership; that there is no military option against Iran; that the battle against Islamic terrorism must be conducted diplomatically, economically and legally and not militarily; that there should not be a surge in Afghanistan; that retreat from Iraq should be accelerated; that the Palestinian issue is the core cause of Middle East turbulence and anti-Western Islamic terrorism, etc.

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama does not reflect respect, by the Nobel Price Committee, for the American President. It does not intend to express appreciation of the American legacy and American human and mega-billion dollar monetary sacrifice, which spared Europe defeat during World War I and World War II, produced victory over Communism and minimized Islamic terrorism in Europe. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee strives to improve Obama's image among Americans and to leverage his presidency, in order to Europeanize US policy, thus accomplishing the "wet dream" of US critics, rivals and enemies. Reservations expressed by most of the US public, legislators and media suggests that the Norwegian politicians may relive the Biblical episode of Balaam in reverse: They came to bless, but ended up cursing.


The subject of my 10/9/09 post, the hypothesis that "...the premature awarding of the Prize to Obama is an attempt to blunt the coming renewed recognition of Reagan’s indisputable achievement with the arrival next month of the 20th anniversary of the
crumbling of the Berlin Wall
– the symbol of the collapse of totalitarian communism.
", is consistent with Mr. Ettinger's theses. A "Europeanized" America could never have prevailed in the Cold War.

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