Robert Scheer | Heroic Diplomacy: How Barack Obama Finally Earned That Peace Prize

[WilliamPitt]

Robert Scheer | Heroic Diplomacy: How Barack Obama Finally Earned That Peace Prize
By Robert Scheer

26 November 2013

Finally, Barack Obama may prove deserving of his Nobel Peace Prize by joining with England, France, China, Russia and Germany in negotiating an eminently sensible rapprochement with Iran on its nuclear program. Following on his pullback from war with Syria and instead, successfully negotiating the destruction of that country's supply of chemical weapons, this is another bold step to fulfill the peacemaking promise that got him elected president in the first place.

As Obama reminded his audience at an event Monday in San Francisco, he was fulfilling the pledge from his first campaign to usher in a "new era of American leadership, one that turned the page on a decade of war." As a candidate in 2007, he committed to engage in "aggressive personal diplomacy" with Iran's leaders, and he has now done just that.

This is potentially an international game changer comparable to Richard Nixon's opening to Mao's Red China and Ronald Reagan's overtures to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, two examples of heroic diplomacy that combined to destroy the underpinnings of the Cold War. Those who continually call for regime change in Iran as a condition for improved relations with that country, as Obama's critics are now doing, ignore that history.

(snip)

Evidently, this has also been a casebook study in diplomacy pursued for years at the president's insistence with much international cooperation and at the highest level of effectiveness. But instead of celebrating the president's returning to his original promise as peacemaker, the warmongers of both parties in Congress, egged on by the unholy alliance of Saudi Arabia and Israel, are crying foul. Their outrage is an affront to morality and logic, as well as a stark betrayal of a legitimate public concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18338-scheer-diplomacy-obama-earned-peace-prize

[MH1]

1. Earned with a little (or a lot) of help from his SoS John Kerry.

Still, Obama is the boss so it is right for him to get most of the credit. He did, after all, put Kerry in that position.

[RobertEarl]

2. Well, we still need to take over in Canada

We already own the best part : Alaska. And Canada is sitting on our oil. The reason the price of our oil has gone down is because Canada has dropped the price a bit.

Otherwise, yeah, Peace with Iran is good. As long as Israel is ok with that.

[monmouth3]

4. I don't particularly care if Israel is ok with it or not..

[RobertEarl]

5. But you do think we should take Canada? (TIC)

Because some here have said Peace trumps money and that is why oil is 'tumbling'.

As for Israel: It is because of Israel that we have wanted to nuke Iran before Iran could nuke us. Well, not us, but nuke Israel. Israel can nuke Iran without us. But what is even worse is that Japan, our good friend, has kinda nuked us. Just imagine what Iran could do - by 'accident'. Or Israel. With friends like Japan, who can we trust?

Canada: Our final frontier!

[PATRICK]

3. A lot of credit to Kerry and

the White House for picking him. I won't speculate on a what if Hillary. A lot has been done to navigate peace through an Arab world meltdown(begun by Bush and not for these results).

I'm sure that general US foreign policy is still from pure but the final slam on a lose/lose horrific Iranian war keeps the planned tarbaby away. The feeble "Ben Ghazi!/ The ACA website!" are so enfeebled without a real disaster.

Amazing how the narrative keeps steering away from holding them up to actual account for working for harm to the entire planet to get power they would never do any good with.