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Title: Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize Teaser: Obama's Nobel Prize speech focused on the notion of the "just war" and his administration's initiatives to prevent nuclear proliferation. Pull Quote: Obama's speech reflected the Augustinian notion of the just war. U.S. President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on Thursday. Obama began his speech by acknowledging previous Nobel Prize winners and citing his own lack of achievements towards peace, taking credit only for his actions to stop torture, close the Guantanamo Bay prison, and reaffirm America's commitment to the Geneva Conventions. He also admitted the irony of receiving the prize despite his role as the U.S. Commander in Chief directing two wars, one of which -- Afghanistan - he has recently chosen to escalate. More broadly, Obama's speech reflected the Augustinian notion of the "just war." Touring the history of war and identifying it as a natural human phenomenon, Obama addressed the 20th century's world wars and the international institutions designed subsequently to prevent relapses, pointing to the Cold War as evidence that these institutions succeeded in preventing a third world war. Yet when Obama spoke of the post-Cold War period, he focused on one of his administration's foreign policy initiatives -- preventing nuclear proliferation. Though he has said destroying all nuclear weapons within his lifetime may not be possible, he argued that war certainly could not be extinguished in such a timeframe and that both bilateral and multilateral wars would continue to happen. Specifically he focused on the American military's role in the international system, saying that the U.S. military has been a force for peace and global security since the end of World War II. In other words, the bulk of Obama's acceptance speech concentrated on the principle of just war and the view that American military intervention historically has conformed to that principle. At this point, Obama was clearly thinking of Iran. Tehran has rejected international proposals to persuade it to open up its nuclear program. Iran is pressing against the deadline -- at the end of 2009 -- to accept a plan for verifying the program's civilian aims. The deadline has already been pushed back several times by the United States. Hence, in a few short weeks, Iran's delay will force the United States to act on its promises to punish Tehran, namely through sanctions. Obama addressed this when he said that there must be "alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior," and that "sanctions must exact a real price." Obama then mentioned Iran by name -- along with North Korea -- and called for international cooperation, saying "those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war." The speech was thus a quintessentially American argument. For over a century, U.S. strategy has been to exercise military power abroad when necessary to achieve its national interests. This behavior stems from the country's geographic distance from its opponents, its naval domination of the world's oceans, and its interest in intervening in other countries to counterbalance regional powers and preventing super-regional powers from emerging. No recent president has shrunk from waging war, and only a precious few have done so in the country's history. Often the result of American interventions is criticism for failing to achieve anything, when in fact the purpose has been merely to interrupt trends or patterns of power before they become threatening. Of course, it is already clear that the United States does not have the support (namely from Russia) to make sanctions effectual. Israel has long lost patience in the diplomatic effort and knows sanctions don't stand a chance. In essence, then, Obama used his Nobel speech to plan out the justification -- at least theoretically -- for U.S. military action against Iran. While the venue may be ironic, the speech was bipartisan, independent of his character or that of his administration, and wholly consistent with American grand strategy.