"Does President Obama Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, He Can!"

by Stephen Rohde

When the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to President Obama, they praised his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." That was a dramatic departure from the belligerency and unilateralism of the Bush administration. President Obama has indeed raised hopes that the US will end torture, close Guantanamo, reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal, and withdraw troops from Iraq. These are noble aspirations worthy of recognition, but will tragically be remembered as mere rhetoric unless President Obama takes concrete steps to accomplish them.

As the chair of a group of people of diverse faiths who have been meeting since 9/11 to promote justice and peace, I agree with President Obama that the Peace Prize is a "call to action." We hope it will encourage and challenge him not only to fulfill his promises, but to go further. It is not enough to withdraw troops from Iraq, he should also have an exit strategy for promptly withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

Announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize came nearly eight years to the day after the US invasion of Afghanistan on Oct 7, 2001. Eight years of bloody war have passed—one of the longest wars in US history—and the situation in Afghanistan has grown worse, not better, according to most experts, even those who support this war. There have been 1,381 coalition deaths in Afghanistan, with the numbers spiking in the past two years. Civilian deaths—more than 2,000 Afghans were killed last year alone, according to the United Nations—have been a decisive factor in souring many Afghans on the war.

The majority of both Afghans and Americans now want us to leave. Yet many military experts are saying that we may be “obliged” to stay in Afghanistan for forty years or more to turn it into the kind of nation we want it to be.

No foreign power has ever had a military “success” in Afghanistan—all have been forced to leave, usually ignominiously, because the Afghan people do not want a foreign power to impose its will on them. Sooner or later, we will have to leave Afghanistan just like the Russians and the British.

Our endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are draining our national treasure as well as causing needless deaths. We are spending 130 billion dollars per year on our military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan—which is considerably more than Obama’s health plan would cost per year.

In accepting the Peace Prize, President Obama needs to realize that the problems of this region cannot be solved militarily. We must decrease our dependence on military solutions and increase our diplomatic efforts and development aid. We need to remember that terrorism cannot be ended by killing innocent people, especially mothers and children, as all too often happens in times of war.

To be worthy of the honor that the Nobel Committee has bestowed, President Obama needs to take several decisive actions. To live up to the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama should create a Department of Peace, a cabinet level agency with the mandate to seek peaceful solutions to international conflicts.

He must keep his promise to close Guantanamo and also close the notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan. He must hold fully accountable all those who used, and authorized the use of, torture by the US government, be they high government officials, Justice department lawyers or CIA agents.

President Obama must withdraw our occupying forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stop supporting the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the siege of Gaza. He must insist that Israel abide by UN resolutions calling for an end to occupation of lands seized during the 1967 war and work for a peaceful, just two-state solution to the problem of Israel/Palestine.

As the best way to ensure peace and security, President Obama must reduce our bloated military budget and spend more on domestic needs at home and development needs abroad. To show the world that we are a responsible, law-abiding nation. President Obama needs to actively support the international court and international law.

In 1993, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela invoked the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who said that "humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war." Mandela passionately called for "a world of democracy and respect for human rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of millions forced to become refugees."

If President Obama fulfills these goals, he will indeed be worthy of the Peace Prize. It won't be easy, but he has given us hope that peace is possible. We believe that yes, he can!

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Stephen Rohde is Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a group of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others formed in the wake of 9/11