|
Dr. Walid Phares
Nobel Committee Pulls Oil Plug on Democracy
October 12, 2009
As soon as the Oslo committee issued its Nobel Peace
Prize to President Barack Obama, an expected debate
raged in America about the legitimacy of such a move
so very early in a U.S. presidential term.
The debate soon will espouse the dividing lines
between domestic and foreign policy issues and, in a
few weeks, will die out under the awe of new
unfolding events. What will remain are future policy
debates that will refer to one of the world's most
prestigious awards as a fact in international
relations.
Months and few short years from now, supporters of
the "new direction" in U.S. foreign policy as well
as academics will frame Obama's Nobel as a
consolidation of a new world order, while the media
outburst following the granting declaration will be
forgotten.
Hence, bypassing the noise of did-he-earn-it-or-not
deliberations, let's ask: What is the strategy
behind the decision to grant this particular trophy
to the sitting American president?
To answer this, we simply can connect the dots
between the statements made by the grantor and the
grantee. Naturally every American must be proud, and
many people around the world are happy for such a
decision to honor the White House, although some
U.S. leaders wished the committee had granted past
presidents such as Bill Clinton for his gigantic
efforts in worldwide humanitarian assistance.
The alternative choices are arguable, but this
particular gesture isn’t about past achievements, as
the committee and the recipient have concurred. It
is about supporting a specific policy, which has
been enunciated firmly during 2009 and is now being
grounded in layers of moral recognition.
This honored policy is to ensure that there will be
no more American intervention overseas to provoke
democratic change, let alone revolutions,
particularly in the so-called “Muslim world.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded “the change in
global mood wrought by Obama's calls and initiatives
that have yet to bear fruit: easing American
conflicts with Muslim nations.”
In other words, the transnational group of
academics, politicians, and multinational
corporations involved in the Oslo process of the
Nobel Peace Prize clearly has championed the policy
of Western restraint from “meddling” in the domestic
business of authoritarian regimes.
If previous unilateral interventions meant removing
the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power,
“multilateral approaches” mean not to pressure such
types of regimes, as long as the latter's action
doesn’t disrupt the flow of petrodollars.
The real message of the prize’s grantors is deeper
than what it shyly states: You will be honored if
you keep your hands off our regimes and ideologies.
Thus this recognition is not really about abstract
notions or about climate change. It is a message
from the authoritarians in the greater Middle East,
via their economic partners in the West, to the
United States, to quit pushing for democracy and
intervening for human rights; as the previous
administration said it would, but in fact failed to
deliver.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is based in Norway,
which cooperates with OPEC and often has joint
ventures with its members. The latter is obviously
controlled by the hard-core authoritarian members of
the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and
the Arab League. These regimes, regardless of their
bilateral disputes (such as Wahabis and Khomeinists),
have one common ground: Oppose the rise of
democracy, their worst enemy, in their own midst.
U.S. intervention in Yugoslavia, moderating the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, reaching out to
dissidents in Myanmar, is fine. But defeating the
Taliban and empowering women, helping the reformers
in Iran, the Cedars Revolution in Lebanon, or saving
Darfur: All of that is forbidden.
The bureaucrats and advisers of the Oslo committee
are in partnership with the OPEC-OIC web and thus
have offered their “credibility” as part of efforts
to block and reverse American support to the
underdogs in the region. In their eyes, the Obama
administration already delivered significantly in
nine months: The war on terror is over, narrative
against jihadism is deleted, OIC’s “fatwa” on
Defamation of Religion is endorsed, meddling in
Iran’s oppression of its citizens rejected,
intervention in Darfur stopped, Ghadafi’s terror
forgotten, Assad regime’s massacres forgiven, and of
course Guantanamo to be closed and U.S. Homeland
Security directed against natural disasters instead
of urban jihadism.
With such achievements, the “oil jihadi cartel”
cannot but make a grand gesture to consolidate the
new direction. In return, the powerful grantee
accepted the prize as a “call to action,” meaning
the course will be stayed. Reaffirming the tenets of
his Cairo speech, the president asserted that
today’s world is one of “religions” deserving
“mutual interests and respect.”
So, between the lines, no future U.S. actions will
be in favor of oppressed peoples if they happen to
be living in Dar el Islam. The war in Iraq will be
ended, regardless of Iran, Syria, and the Jihadists’
future interventions there. And there will be no
escalation in the battlefield of Afghanistan, if
only somehow the “ruthless adversary would stop
threatening the United States.”
Here we go: The “other side” announced its agenda
for America, and the latter accepted. Surely it is
nice to receive a prominent prize, but it is
important to see beyond our own nose. The hope is
that the price for such an honor won’t be a human
rights catastrophe for the underdogs in the “Muslim
world.” |
”
and "
