If the Iran nuclear deal holds and becomes a lasting legacy (knock on wood)

[True Blue Door]

will the fauxgressives who have mocked Obama's Nobel Peace Prize finally admit he deserves it?

Personally I don't have such amnesia about this country or the world that I think that was ever in question, given the level of positive change he achieved just by getting elected, let alone how he has rebuilt global diplomacy from the ashes of Bushian fascism.

But a nuclear agreement with Iran that stands the test of time would be a nice cherry on the sundae of his achievements, and the disgrace of those who hold him in contempt from the left.

[lovemydog]

1. Most important to me:

I applaud and celebrate The President and his Administration for it's long negotiations. I applaud all the people who support diplomacy over war.

May all good peace-loving people rise up and demand peace over war, stability over violence.

[True Blue Door]

2. We've come a long way from Dick Cheney's plan to start another war.

[lovemydog]

3. We have indeed.

I don't have rose-colored glasses. But seeing the faces of people celebrating peace brings great pleasure in this often difficult world.

[Abouttime]

24. Allies?

Perhaps we should be allied with Iran instead of the house of Saud and Israel.

[True Blue Door]

40. Slow down. Let's ask them to stop chanting "Death to America" and trampling our flag every day.

Then we'll see where we can go from there.

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Waiting for some of those vociferous critics to weigh in...

Here's some crow for their breadfast, in the meantime:

[True Blue Door]

5. Their M.O. is to just ignore good news until it goes away

so they can pretend it never happened and go back to bashing Obama over smaller issues.

[Surya Gayatri]

6. They're like awful broken records, spewing their negativity on a loop, every chance they get...

Soooo obvious...

[True Blue Door]

11. Literally just four days ago, Trevor Timm at the Guardian called Obama a warmonger.

I'm guessing he'll be quiet for a while, until the inconvenient cloud of reality dissipates.

[Surya Gayatri]

13. 'On verra bien', as my French compatriots would say...

[lovemydog]

8. I don't care for that reference toward other posters here.

Many critics on the left have very legitimate concerns.

They too care deeply for peace and equal opportunity.

Most have worked very hard for peace, throughout their lives.

I'm a President Obama supporter. I also listen to critics from the left.

I know and appreciate that they too want peace.

And as much right to express their opinions here as we do.

[Surya Gayatri]

9. Is it the 'eat crow' or the 'broken record' reference you don't like, lovemydog?

Have a look at some of the nasty exchanges in this thread to see where I'm coming from:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026452384

Some posters have never had one good thing to say about Obama, his administration or their accomplishments. One long litany of bashing and snarking...and this on DEMOCRATIC Underground. And, it's always the same offenders.

[DeSwiss]

29. As long as we're sharing breakfast recipes.......

...you'll no doubt find this similarly as appetizing to you, as your reference was to me.

- DU has become so intolerant it becoming almost conservative.

[Surya Gayatri]

31. Sorry, to whom do I have the honor of speaking? Did someone

request your number? Or did they have it already?

[DeSwiss]

37. I'm so sorry you find the corpses of babies amusing. n/t

[Surya Gayatri]

38. No, but thin-skinned umbrage on a discussion forum, yeah...

[True Blue Door]

41. If you valued civilian lives more than simply hating the United States (or Barack Obama personally?)

you might have noticed that the targets of drone strikes tend to be groups that carry out mass-casualty terrorist attacks deliberately targeted at civilians.

Your moral compass needs serious calibration.

Je Suis Charlie. How about you?

[truebluegreen]

52. "targets tend to be...."

Do we always hit the target, do we never miss, do we never make a mistake? Sorry, but the drone program is immoral, and the idea that bombing people will solve the problem that bombing people caused in the first place is, in a word, stupid. Or are you trying to say they'll love us for our technology.

[True Blue Door]

59. In other words, the solution to eliminationist terrorist groups is pacifism.

Sure. What could possibly go wrong with that strategy?

[Cha]

7. Iranian Nuclear Deal Cements President Obama’s Legacy; Validates Nobel Peace Prize

In a landmark victory for peace and cooperation, President Obama and a coalition of world powers have agreed to a lasting accord with the Islamic Republic of Iran, halting their nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of the economic sanctions that have been crippling the Iranian economy. “We have stopped a cycle that is not in the interest of anybody!” proclaimed Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif

MOre..
http://www.occupydemocrats.com/peace-triumphs-pres-obama-reaches-historic-nuclear-deal-with-iran/





Mahalo TBD

[True Blue Door]

14. I think it was already validated, but positivity is always good.

His rise to the Presidency of the United States was a hugely powerful and globally significant achievement in terms of civil rights and moving past racist history (and overcoming present racism). The psychological impact worldwide can't be overstated.

If this deal succeeds, I say give him another Nobel.

[Cha]

17. I do, too.. although, the significance of this Deal with Iran cannot be overstated. Bibi and the 47

tried so hard to squelch it.. at any cost.

I'm so proud of the President, SOS Kerry.. and all those who negotiated!


John Kerry ✔ @JohnKerry
Follow
The understanding we’ve reached is a solid foundation for the good deal we seek: http://go.usa.gov/3jPWk #IranDeal
9:30 AM - 2 Apr 2015 Laurent Fabius and 4 others
1,120 Retweets 1,204 favorites

[True Blue Door]

20. And now the *really* hard part - keeping its opponents on either side from sabotaging it.

I know what you mean though: Such a huge breakthrough even getting this far. It's a massive psychological victory in addition to a diplomatic one.

[Cha]

28. Indeed! Well stated, TBD.

[Enthusiast]

10. If the deal holds and Republicans don't screw it up, the price of oil will fall.

This is the true motive behind resistance to the deal.

[Surya Gayatri]

15. And, don't forget the MIC and their fellow travelers...

No war, no weapons sales.

It's the bottom line, really. Just looking after business...

[Enthusiast]

22. You are correct. We cannot allow this group to control foreign policy. It would mean perpetual war.

[Surya Gayatri]

32. ^^^This!^^^

[stopspending]

54. oil prices

the price of oil has already fallen because the Saudis want to stop oil production in the US and other countries. The Saudis realize that if the US becomes self sufficient in oil, their whole economy and lifestyle will fall apart. Lower prices will encourage producers in the US to stop production. The Saudis can then raise the price and we all will pay. Look to the near future instead of just today.

[Enthusiast]

55. If there is a war, or even talk of a supply interruption, the price will go up.

I believe that is real reason there is this GOP resistance to a deal. That and the goal to embarrass the President.

[marble falls]

58. So the Saudis are pumping their limited resource to bring down US prices on their limited resource..

to make the US pump even more?

[cstanleytech]

12. Well hopefully if this goes through Iran will wake up to the fact that they dont need nukes at all

not while they have oil and even after thats gone if they invest the money wisely in building their education system and investing in alternate forms of safe energy like solar and wind they should be fine.
Its the countries that dont invest in those things that rely on fossil fuels and or nuclear reactors until the oil is all gone imo that are probably going to suffer the worst if they dont get off their butts and start building the infrastructure that they will need to survive a world without oil.

[True Blue Door]

16. Conservatives in both countries don't want peace.

The question is whether decent people in both are strong enough to force it.

[Vattel]

18. If it does hold then he deserves the prize.

If it doesn't hold, then his receiving the prize should continue to be mocked. He hasn't been a total hawk like Bush, but he hasn't done much for peace either.

[True Blue Door]

21. He doesn't deserve it for the gargantuan civil rights accomplishment

of rising to the Presidency of the world's most powerful country within living memory of black people being considered less than human, and in which black people can still barely walk down the street without fear of racial harassment in so many places?

If not, then you must think very little of the vast majority of Nobel recipients who got it for similar but far smaller-scale achievements.

[Vattel]

23. His being elected president? That is a great civil rights accomplishment, but

it isn't an accomplishment of the sort that the Nobel prize was intended to reward. The prize is supposed to be given to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

[True Blue Door]

27. How do MLK Jr.'s accomplishments in 1964 fit that description?

[Vattel]

36. Good point. I guess I think MLK's accomplishments were so profound

that I don't care whether it fits. Also, he did actually oppose and prevent violence in a way that Obama has not. But you make a good point. There is a tradition of interpreting the requirements for the award very broadly.

[True Blue Door]

42. I see Obama's civil rights accomplishments as the strongest since King's in US history.

Although in terms of pacifism, that's neither practical nor morally defensible in one bound by oath to defend the lives of others.

[Vattel]

48. True, but I don't think Obama's record on military policy is a very good one.

Not bombing Iran is one thing he has done right and, if this deal with Iran is successful, that will be a stellar accomplishment in terms of promoting peace.

[True Blue Door]

49. Whose record on military policy do you consider better?

[Vattel]

60. Clinton's and Carter's for sure.

[True Blue Door]

61. I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that.

The Clinton administration's military policies were incoherent, and based largely on flailing responses in one direction or another to public opinion polls and Republican trolling. If they wanted to do something and didn't feel they had the political support, instead of building the support or just holding off, they would do something half-assed and then walk away the moment it became inconvenient.

And if they didn't want to do something but were hounded by Republicans over it, they would again do it half-assed instead of behaving authoritatively and saying "No, we're doing it this way" as Obama switched the US stance vis-a-vis Iran over from confrontation to diplomacy.

The Carter administration was praiseworthy in diplomacy, but it was extremely militarily negligent. Instead of cleaning up the messes he inherited, Carter mostly washed his hands of them and pretended they weren't there - which just conceded the agenda to shadier characters in the administration like Brzezinski, who was every bit the sonofabitch as Kissinger, and was the author of not only the taliban in Afghanistan but the descent of the Iranian monarchy into outright dictatorship.

Granted, Carter was an extremely excellent facilitator of third-party diplomacy, and the Camp David Accords are a colossal historic achievement, but the order of the day where direct US policy was concerned was negligence. The world went from the US being the direct author of global chaos under Nixon to being its passive spectator (or shadow instigator) under Carter.

There's peaceful, and there's weak. Nixon thought peacefulness was weak, Carter that weakness was peace. Obviously neither is true. The 1970s were a blood-soaked Dark Age for much of the world as a result of both sets of policies, with fatality levels that make everything going on today look trivial.

[Vattel]

62. wow, I couldn't disagree more.

Carter was not weak with respect to our primary security threat, i.e., the USSR. And unlike Obama, he did a good job avoiding using military force in ineffective and counterproductive ways. Clinton is a longer story, but Obama's foolish surge in Afghanistan, his misguided policy in Libya, his stupid plan to do a major attack on Syria (there he was saved by pure luck), his negligence with respect to Iraq, his screwing up our relationship with Russia (not that I don't blame Putin too), etc., has been much worse than anything Clinton did.

[True Blue Door]

63. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

My understanding of the things you mention is very different from how you're interpreting them, but it's probably not worth going into a sprawling point-by-point dissection of such a hugely complex topic.

We can at least agree that Carter's was a very different world from Obama's, with very different circumstances and exigencies.

[Vattel]

64. Sounds good. A really serious discussion would be hard to do here,

and, even worse, I might lose the argument! I do agree that Carter's world was very different, and the disaster in Vietnam still loomed large and probably influenced his thinking. I hope that Bush's disaster in Iraq looms large in the mind of the next president making her or him less hawkish, but we will see. I really hope that Obama and Kerry aren't getting played by Iran. I don't think they are, partly because I think it is in the interests of Iran not to attempt to develop nuclear weapons, but that remains to be seen as well.

[ejbr]

19. There are innocent people

killed or maimed by our drone strikes who are not impressed. I, however, will give credit where credit is due.

[True Blue Door]

25. There were innocent people killed by Allied bombs in WW2

who might not have been impressed by Gandhi's failure to oppose the war. Or they might have, because not everyone is self-involved enough to think the personal consequences for themselves define the absolute moral value of everything.

I'm not saying even the most obviously justified of wars is ever right - I know the difference between excusable and right. But citing a war against enemies that no one on planet Earth considers capable of reasoning with as evidence that someone is not committed to peace is unbelievably hypocritical.

Does someone have to be Amish before they deserve to be called a peacemaker? Or does that standard only apply to Barack Obama?

Here's the list of Nobel Peace Prize winners:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates

Obama already belongs among the more constructive and illustrious recipients. If this deal holds, he would deserve to move even farther up the hieararchy.

[ejbr]

33. Stand by what I typed n/t

[True Blue Door]

43. And I stand by the moral and historical context I provided for it.

[ejbr]

46. Interesting

It's moral to be indifferent to the suffering of others. Must be nice.

[True Blue Door]

50. Apparently suffering is only real if we're the cause.

That should come as some solace to that college in Kenya that just got hit for 148 deaths by Somali militants. I'm sure it will come as consolation to their families that the militants were not found first and targeted by a drone strike that might have accidentally - unlike the deliberate terrorist attack massacre - harmed or killed innocents too.

Must be nice to be a principled pacifist with other people's lives.

[Surya Gayatri]

51. ^^^WORD^^^!

[Surya Gayatri]

34. So spot on, True Blue...

[DeSwiss]

26. Deserve it?

I'm not sure anyone does. Did Kissinger? Singling one person (particularly in instances where it's before they've even done anything to indicate why they're should) out like this always seems to end up DIVIDING people -- instead of bringing them together. Like now.

I mean, am I supposed to forget everything? That would require amnesia.....

"Stand firm for what you believe in. Until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong. Remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked. The truth and a lie are not "sort of" the same thing. And there is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza. Thank you." --Daria Morgendorffer

(''fauxgressives'' - Good one. I'll add to my growing list of liberal pejoratives for all those people who don't agree with them..... :|)

[True Blue Door]

30. Then you just don't agree with the concept of the Nobel Peace Prize.

That's a larger context and a separate discussion.

But if the Prize had been intended to only reward pacifists, that would obviously have been included as a criterion.

Instead, it's been awarded to generals who've fought unprecedentedly bloody wars, to former dictators who helped bring down their own oppressive states, former terrorists who moved toward more peaceful solutions, and even to (gasp) democratically elected leaders whose impact on the world has been overwhelmingly positive and constructive toward peace and civil rights from day 1.

Because it's an award for actual human beings who dare to accomplish to the benefit of the world, not ideologues who sit on the sidelines of life judging others and taking no responsibility for anything in order to remain morally perfect in their own eyes.

[libbyliberal]

35. Answer: No, we "faux"progressives (is it?) won't ... you lesser evilists believe he deserves it?

At the risk of disturbing Dem crony “truthiness” Thursday’s announcement of the “normalization” of Iran’s civil nuclear program deserves more examination than a myopic re-utterance of untrustworthy propagandized reports from mainstream media, whether MSNBC or Fox or even NewsHour, CNN, etc.

Iran and the the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council along with Germany spent 8 days bargaining. The final agreement is to be made June 30th.

The US and western nations are hungry to bring Iran into their imperialistic thrall. They are willing to put painful restrictions on Iran still and on the back burner will remain the threat of war for Iran. Iran is one more country on their bloody clipboard for world domination to the benefit of the ruling class elite and the disintegration of the quality of life or often very lives of the rest of global humanity.

So apparently according to Keith Jones on wsws the Atomic Energy Agency has “carte blanche” to enter for inspection any site or facility in Iran they deem suspicious. For the next 10 years Iran can only operate 1/4 of their centrifuges and of those they must operate at an exceptionally slow pace. Iran’s civil nuclear infrastructure is to be destroyed or removed. It must be rebuilt to guarantee no production of plutonium at a weapon’s grade level.

Cruel US and EU sanctions will be “suspended” but NOT removed permanently. The suspension will not take place until ALL of the conditions are met by Iran. If the US or EU are dissatisfied with any particular lack of Iranian compliance the sanctions “snap back into place” (Keith Jones’ words).

Keith Jones writes:

“At a White House press conference early Thursday afternoon, Obama touted the agreement as a huge diplomatic coup for the US, while boasting that Iran had been brought to heel by the “toughest sanctions in history.””

Yeah, all the Iranians who suffered so under those sanctions. Be proud America! America wears the white hat? I don't think so.

Jones emphasizes that Obama also emphasized that if Iran did not fully and continuously comply, all options would be “on the table,” Obama’s favorite way of messaging the threat of war. Nice diplomacy. And those idiot Repubs think Obama is anti-war. How surreally idiotic when quite the opposite is true and tragically obvious.

Jones also asserts:

"Obama went out of his way to reassure the US’s traditional Mideast allies, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. He announced that he is inviting the leaders of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council to a summit at Camp David. Later he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reportedly told him that “there is no daylight (between us) when it comes to our support for Israel’s security and our concerns about Iran’s destabilizing policies.”"

Yeah, Obama is some mensch. NOT!!! Let's grovel before two of the most anti-human countries on the globe, present country being the third.

Like the bullshit about working for a two-state solution with Palestine that was a big lie spun for so long, Obama works so very hard at “impression management” when his and the US realpolitik -- whether Dem hypocritical faux lesser evilism or batsh*t Republican crazy war lust stridency -- is profoundly amoral and murderous.

my take.

best, libby

[True Blue Door]

39. Ever think that being angry when everyone else is happy and hopeful about something

might just be a comment on you rather than meaning everyone else is either a bunch of deluded sheeple or mustache-twirling villains?

[arely staircase]

44. I love Obama but I don't think he deserved it when he got it

arguably he has earned it after the fact. BHO is smart enough to know he didn't deserve it back then. But he is also smart enough to play chess while all around him are struggling with checkers- so a lot of the good work Obama has done is just beginning to come to fruition.

[True Blue Door]

45. The effect his election had on the world was worthy of the Nobel

even though the work he did to get there wasn't world-altering, just a set of extraordinary personal achievements.

You are right though: He's all about the long game. This is clearly a Presidency focused on creating benefits for this country and the world long after Obama is out of office.

[randome]

57. Agreed.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[JHB]

53. Because that's the most important thing about this