On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claimed that President Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded before he even took office:
At today's briefing, @PressSec said despite US military actions ordered by Pres Obama, he lived up to the goals of the Nobel Peace Prize.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) November 30, 2016
The statement is, of course ludicrous; first, because bringing peace has nothing to do with using military force, but rather creating peace, which is often done through utilizing military force, (after all, although 1919 Peace Prize winner Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations, he also got the US into World War I) and second, because there is nary a place in the world more at peace now than it was when Obama took office, and in most cases the situation is demonstrably worse.
The Peace Prize, as envisioned by Alfred Nobel, would be bestowed on someone who “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Here are nine reasons Obama is most definitely undeserving of the Nobel Peace Prize:
- ISIS. Obama mocked ISIS as a “jayvee team” at the start; the group has since orchestrated terror attacks across Europe and ostensibly inspired attacks here in America. As the Council on Foreign Relations reported in 2014, “ISIS now controls a volume of resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations.”
- Iran: Obama hoodwinked much of the American public and media into supporting the catastrophic nuclear deal with Iran, emboldening the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world; he paid ransom to the same regime, and most egregiously, never offered even the most minute help to reformers in Iran’s Green Revolution in the summer of 2009, who wanted to topple the mullahs and begged for support, receiving none. Instead, Obama said he “want[ed] to avoid the United States being the issue inside Iran.” Obama’s strengthening of the Iranian regime triggered other Arab states in the region to pursue nuclear weapons of their own. Abdullah al Askar, the former chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Saudi Arabia’s advisory legislature, said, “We prefer a region without nuclear weapons. But if Iran does it, nothing can prevent us from doing it too, not even the international community.” As historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote in 2015, “Tehran now has de facto control over four Middle East nations: Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.”
- Iraq: Obama lost the war we had won in Iraq: he even admitted the war had been won on December 14, 2011, stating, “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” Then he withdrew all American troops from Iraq.
- Syria: First Obama insisted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons would constitute crossing a “red line.” Assad did anyway, Obama did nothing. He could have armed Syrian rebels, but vetoed the idea. Almost half a million people have died in Syria since 2011.
- Libya: On March 19, 2011, President Obama unilaterally authorized the U.S. military for “a limited military action in Libya.” He helped pave the way for the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, but what followed was much worse. Even Obama admitted his policy in Libya was the “worst mistake” of his presidency.
- Russia: Under Obama, the United States terminated the missile-defense system the Poles and the Czech Republic had agreed to hold, just to grease relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Russia has invaded Ukraine and intervened in Crimea.
- China: As Jonah Goldberg wrote in National Review last February, “China has only grown emboldened in the face of American lassitude. Just this week, China deployed new missile systems to one of its manmade islands in a disputed region of the South China Sea while Obama was holding his South Asia summit in California.” Last May, as The Washington Times reported, “China scrambled a team of fighter jets to track a U.S. warship as it sailed by a disputed patch of ground in the heart of the South China Sea.”
- Afghanistan: Obama announced a 30,000 troop surge to Afghanistan in 2009, then caviled, asserting they would be removed in 18 months, thus allowing al-Qaida and the Taliban a break to regroup. with enough mental stamina to last at least that long and to plan ahead. Now the Taliban is more powerful than it has been since 2001, and ISIS is also penetrating the country.
- Israel: Obama has constantly undermined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in 2010, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic proportions.” Economist Thomas Sowell said Obama’s relationship with Israel had been the same as his pattern “selling out our allies to curry favor with our adversaries.” By refusing to acknowledge that one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wants peace, and the other does not, as it inculcates hatred for the Israeli people even in its small children, Obama has emboldened all the anti-Israel forces in the region, thus making the finding of peace ever more difficult.
Whatever delusions Obama or his minions have of his peacemaking abilities, they don’t amount to a hill of beans; let alone the Nobel Peace Prize.
Source: The Daily Wire
