Obama: The Prize, The Work, The Reality

Phoenix Woman

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Friday October 09, 2009 · 12:47 PM PDT

2009/10/09 · 12:47

To those, right and left, who holler "He hasn't earned it yet!":

As longtime FDL commenter Sara pointed out this morning, the Nobel Peace Prize is often awarded for work not yet done, as a way to encourage continuance of that work.

It's not as if Obama hasn't actually done anything concrete in the past eight months...

More after the jump.

Juan Cole on Obama, Russia and Iran:

President Obama is slowly putting Iran in a box. His cancellation of the useless and expensive so-called missile shield program in Eastern Europe, which had needlessly antagonized Russia, has been rewarded with greater Russian cooperativeness on Iran. The U.S. right wing accused Obama of a failure of nerve. But in fact his move was shrewd and gutsy, since he predisposed Russia to increased cooperation with the U.S. in regard to Iran's nuclear research program. Obama's full-court press for a United Nations Security Council resolution on nuclear disarmament also pulled the rug out from under Iran's previous grandstanding tactics, whereby it accused the U.S. and its allies of only wanting nuclear dominance, not the abolition of nukes.

Obama chaired the U.N. Security Council at the summit level on Thursday, and managed to get through an important resolution on nuclear disarmament.

Oh, yeah: In less than nine months, Obama has turned around America's image abroad, to the point where we're the most admired nation in the world once again.

As for Iraq, that drawdown's already happening. Meanwhile, even in Afghanistan, where Obama has for the time being decided to keep troops in place, he’s actually considering a switch in strategy that would wind up allowing the Taliban an official place in Afghanistan’s internal politics -- which since they're such a large presence in the country, is a recognition of reality.

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