TABLE FOR ONE : Give peace a chance

Obama’s presidency brings hope to the world

By Grady Jim Robinson

Posted: October 14, 2009 at 7:30 a.m.

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FAYETTEVILLE — It was nice of those five people from Norway to award the Nobel Peace Prize to our new, young president,Barack Obama. It’s like giving a guy an A+ on the first day of school. The funniest line I’ve heard so far comes from David Letterman, who quipped “President Obamawas given the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush.” It’s amazing how major truths can be buried in humor.

After watching the Bush-Cheney show for eight years the whole world was braced for a nuclear war. Neocons were urging former President Bush to attack Iran and destroy their nuclear facilities. President Obama came onto the scene preaching an entirely different doctrine, and the whole world is breathing a sigh of relief.

It’s true that Obama hadn’t accomplished much when the Nobel ballots were turned in. But the Peace Prize was apparently awarded based on hope in the future and faith in the campaign rhetoric of 2008.

Maybe the Nobel committee was right. In the almost nine months since his inauguration Obama has shifted a dozen or so policies from the Bush-Cheney doctrines of attack-now-and-ask-questions-later to a more thoughtful and peaceful approach of foreign policy.

Here are just a few:

◊Obama flew to Cairo, Egypt, to speak with university students and set a clear tone. He is the first president to reach out and actually say that we respect the Arab world and will never pick a fight with Muslims. The speech sent a strong message around the world.

◊End the war in Iraq. It will take time, but his intention to bring our troops home at the appropriate time sent a signal to world leaders. The invasion of Iraq to get all those weapons of mass destruction and destroy all those al-Qaida training camps was probably the most foolhardy decision in American history. It has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and is a major reason our economy went down the toilet.

◊Announce the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison where “suspects” have been held without trial or representation for seven years. Place the real terrorists in prisons elsewhere.

◊Ended the Dick Cheney torture program. The whole world now knows we have been torturing prisoners throughout the Bush war on terrorism. Most of us are for interrogation, even tough interrogation. But for America to have a torture program was deeply disappointing. Obama’s choice to close Gitmo sent a signal to the world that we are on a different path. Dick Cheney is gone forever.

◊Extending a hand to Iran in an attempt to stop their nuclear weapons program. It’s complicated. After we invaded Iraq the people of Iran feared they would be next. They elected a hard-liner in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he is difficult to work with. But Obama’sattempt to dialogue with the so-called “axis of evil” sent a clear message to the world. Iran almost had a revolution after the obviously crooked elections that put Ahmadinejad back in office. But it appears some pressure is working. They have now agreed to allow U.N. inspectorsinto Iran to monitor their nuclear facilities, a small step in the right direction.

◊During the eight years of the Bush administration American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was basically hands-off. The Bush policy was to refuse any dialogue with Yasser Arafat until the Palestinians did what we wanted them to do. Obama immediately attempted to establish dialogue and sent a special envoy to the region. Most people feel this part of the world is hopelessly mired in an ancient conflict that will never be solved, but trying to help is viewed as a positive step in the right direction.

◊Bush threatened to place defense missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, ostensibly as a defense for Israel against Iranian missiles. Because Bush was mostly drunk during the 1960s he didn’t realize it was sort of like Russia placing missiles in Cuba during the Kennedy administration, which created the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vladimir Putin was very angry and ordered bomber flights in no-fly zones near the borders of NATO countries. Obama canceled the defense missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, which avoided a crisis with Putin.

◊Obama believes there is a real threat in Afghanistan and in the mountains of Pakistan. He is now trying to decide the best way forward in dealing with the return and growth of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Whatever he decides it will be viewed as an attempt to eventually bring peace to the world. He is known as a man of peace.

All these things were done in the months after the Nobel committee cast their votes for the Peace Prize. They correctly anticipated that Barack Obama would be the polar opposite of George W. Bush, and they were correct. The American electorate voted for change in November 2008. We were tired of the wild cowboy ways of “bring it on” Bush.

It is uncertain if Obama will ever succeed in bringing peace to the world. But it seems more hopeful to at least try than to call other people names, or to attack entire nations and brag about “shock and awe.”

Right now the people of the world are watching our new president, and they like what they see. He is different, he brings hope to a war-torn world, and many of us are thankful for that.

Grady Jim Robinson is a freelance writer and a professional speaker who lives in Fayetteville. His column appears on Wednesdays.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/14/2009

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