Months of intense negotiations have resulted in an historic agreement with Iran that signals a “game-changing rapprochement that would reduce the risk of a wider Middle East war“. Iran has agreed to place strict limits on their nuclear activities and submit to increased inspections. In return, the US — along with France, Germany, Britain, China, and Russia — have agreed to reduce sanctions on Iran that have isolated the country.
It is interesting to see the response to this agreement, which seems to be largely published on twitter of all places.
So, did Obama finally earn his Nobel Peace Prize?
UPDATE: Whatever you may think of this agreement, it has caused oil prices to fall. And the market likes it — companies dependent on fuel prices (airlines and other travel firms) saw their stock prices rise as a result.
14 Comments
Well liberals have always defended him to be nobel prize winner no matter what, so this is just another excuse to justify his nobel peace (lol) prize.
He has greater crimes than his achievements. No doubt he is hero for liberals, but for people who have suffered in his hands and still suffering would disagree.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/29/pakistan-family-drone-victim-testimony-congress
I’m for it and only time will tell the story. IMO movement with the consensus of major players at the UN is better then eternal nothingness. At least if it does’nt work out well we’ll have company to share our misery.
Hassan, I often enjoy your comments but this one makes me think you’re a troll. Do you even know any liberals? Most of my liberal/progressive friends were embarrassed by the nobel prize from the start, first because he obviously had not earned it, then later because he clearly did not earn it.
Obama is no hero, and I don’t know anyone who speaks of him in such terms, but he IS a hell of a lot better than any of the alternatives Republicans wanted us to consider.
You sound pretty arrogant describing what liberals do and think. As is usually the case, arrogance is associated with ignorance.
I’m a liberal and I’m embarrassed by much Obama has done. I also believe he has achieved a great deal under extreme opposition. No hero.
Obama has governed as a reasonably sane conservative president. In that light, there aren’t that many surprises.
One has to wonder about the meaning of his first-day executive order, to close Guantanamo. It didn’t come to much (although this cannot be blamed on Obama entirely).
As so often is the case, the realities of a lumbering, inert government machinery forces you to pick your battles.
I still claim that Obama is a moderate, which means sometimes he is liberal (same sex marriage, health care reform) and sometimes he is a conservative (drone strikes, health care reform).
But I agree with you Dan. I’m amazed at how much Obama has been able to accomplish given the unrelenting and knee-jerk opposition he has suffered from Republicans.
DAVID FREEMAN, I read liberal blogs a lot, like dailykos, I personally do not know any “liberal”. So is Dailykos and democratic party not representative of liberal/progressive values
Hassan I’d say that dailykos is pretty far left while the Democratic party covers a pretty wide range from very liberal to right-of-center, meaning the party is forced to be relatively inclusive in comparison to the Republicans.
I’d agree that Obama is fairly moderate, but in comparison to the rest of the West that makes him pretty conservative. He’s inherited a lot of bad situations from the previous administration, but also some bad habits as well (like lack of transparency, or too much transparency when it suits them). The Nobel Prize award was basically as it was described on NPR at the time by NPR: Obama and by proxy the American people were given the Nobel Peace Prize for picking someone who appeared very different from George W Bush.
Finally, Hassan, really? You don’t know any liberals personally? That seems hard to do, despite my best efforts I’ve ended up dating a couple conservatives. Those family dinners are always fun.
It is definitely an important first step towards normalising relations with Iran. The Iranian people have a lot to offer the world and I personally know many intelligent people that have left Iran because of the ridiculousness that plagues their lives under the Ahmadinejad regime and international sanctions. Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu, arguably a bigger threat to world safety than any other middle east leader said this was a historic mistake while world leaders praised this iconic summit across the boards. It is not the end, merely the beginning, but hopefully one day this normalisation of relations will lead to internal liberalisation and greater freedom for Iranian people. Maybe even a second, successful green revolution is around the corner. (Wishful thinking I know)
However, Obama is as undeserving of his Nobel peace prize as ever, no matter how many Malala’s they find they will find many more Malala-sized graves.
PS Nobel prizes are pretty much a load of BS, and are highly political – giving one to the European Union aka “every European citizen”. Thanks but no thanks, I’d rather not share a ‘peace prize’ with the extremists of all stripes that inhabit this northern quasi-peninsula even though there are many more good people.
Well, I think I actually agree with most of what was said so far, although I don’t know that I’d characterize drone strikes as conservative. Their ancestors the carpet bombing with incendiaries during WWII were carried out by a liberal.
I do understand Hassan’s sentiments on the civilian casualties from acts of war. No One wants to see no combatants killed. Being a military member and veteran though I don’t know of a better way to eradicate enemy forces hiding amongst civilians. My advice to Hassan would be to Op-ed a piece in Al-Jazeera to implore Al-Qaida and the Taliban to stop using civilians as shields.
PATRIOTSGT, why do you think Al-Qaida and Taliban will listen to me, and I doubt they read anything like that.
Although since you are reading my comment, I can tell you, enemy forces are not hiding amongst civilians, rather enemy forces are being created among the civilians by actions of west. When people attending marriage gatherings are being targeted as enemies, and then people who are coming to help are again droned, I am sure they will not send us flowers back. My God how hard it is to understand this common human emotion of self defence. If China attacks America, and is coming through Texas, I will pick up arms to fight them away to best of my capabilities.
The best way to eradicate enemy forces is not to have enemies, and make sure if you have some, contain their numbers rather than increasing their numbers.
I have to agree with Hassan on his strategy, for every civilian killed by drone strike, there will be 5 more “enemy combatants” to deal with.
Not to mention the drone campaigns in the ME and South Asia are among some of the most illegal international actions of recent times. If govts cant play by the rules they themselves create, why should paramilitary groups?
Hassan, I agree that there are drone strikes that were wrong and should not have been carried out and I am sorry for their losses. People make mistakes and errors and when this happens in war the result is tragedy. I do know that our military would not carry out a strike to intentionally target innocent civilians at a wedding. When attacking ground based targets from the air, usually there is more then one source of intelligence (matter of fact it’s required). The drones don’t just fly around, see someone and open up unless they can see they are armed. There can even be intel on the ground in the way of either special forces, or local people. If you want to get rid of your neighbor just let the Americans know that several key Taliban leaders will be attending a local wedding. The world won’t always know exactly how we assumed there was enemy present. It could also have been a case like with Bin Laden, at first they thought it too risky to send in troops and they were going to send cruise missiles. What would have been the story following that; “Americans kill innocent women and children trying to get Bin Laden who was not at home at the time”. We are not the only ones who twist the truth to fit our agenda.
Again, I am sorry for the loss of innocents.
Maybe the issue is that the military is too quick to accept “intelligence” from dodgy sources then. Intentions aside, if any Tom, Dick or Omar can be credited as a reliable source and acted upon then I would say the military-intelligence apparatus is in need of serious revision. I’m sure they don’t want to kill civilians they just don’t care enough that they do.
Diogenes You mean you’ve never heard of that age old oxymoron “military-intelligence”.
But seriously our intel people rely on multiple sources including humint and sigint then test it for common sense and plausability. But in that world you can still never be 100% certain as was the case with Bin Laden, which is why they ended up sending the boots. They didn’t want any question marks.
On the collateral damage as they call it so coldly, you’re correct in that they really do want to minimize it, it’s just not a perfect science hence the feeling they don’t care. Every call to commit to an attack is made at several levels and a Sr. Commander has to make the final decision. So it’s never a gaggle of privates that would make that call.
Personally, I think we should have left a long time ago. But then we still have 1000’s of troops in Korea, Germany and Japan and that was 60+ years ago.