More commentary on Obama's Nobel Prize, including Robert Parry and Hillary Clinton

[ProSense]

Commentary: Why Obama deserves the prize

By Hamid Dabashi
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is http://www.hamiddabashi.com/.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Obama woke up today with the once-in-a-lifetime news that he won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The joy and pride of this early morning news must have matched, if not surpassed, that other piece of news he received the evening of November 4, 2008, when he won the presidency of the United States.

He won the presidency by hard work, tenacity and above all an exceptional oratorical gift to share the expansive vision he had for a deeply troubled country that was much maligned on the world scene.

His mere election, and the joyous euphoria it generated among millions of his supporters, was a delivery of Americans from eight troubled years in which they could hardly recognize themselves in their own country. Now he wins this singular honor for sharing that very liberating vision for an equally troubled and even more maligned world.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Norwegian committee said in its statement announcing the prize.

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Reasoning Behind Obama's Peace Prize

By Robert Parry
October 12, 2009

Okay, I’ll admit that when I first saw on the Internet that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I checked to make sure I hadn’t accidentally gone to The Onion’s satirical news site. But the more I think about it – and the more I hear the laughter from Official Washington – the more I appreciate what the prize committee did.

Last year, Barack Obama did something extraordinary for the cause of world peace. He built a campaign that wrested control of the U.S. government from a gang of duplicitous warmongers.

Considering the unprecedented military might of the United States, that was no small achievement.

And Obama did it despite a U.S. news media that remains dominated by the gang’s fellow travelers, not only at Fox News and on right-wing talk radio, but at prestige news outlets like the Washington Post.

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It’s become trendy across the political spectrum to attack Obama for perceived failures, not only on the Right but on the Left, where he is denounced for not doing enough. He’s faulted for faltering on his pledge to close the Guantanamo prison, failing to reverse all of George W. Bush’s imperial overreach, adding troops to Afghanistan and considering a second escalation.

How, some on the Left have argued, could the Nobel Peace Prize committee give the award to Obama when he hasn’t ended either of his inherited wars, in Iraq or Afghanistan? Nor, these critics say, has Obama made much progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks or in engaging Iran in serious negotiations.

But it sometimes makes sense to view a political leader not through the lens of perfection but through the prism of what the likely alternatives were. Of the leading contenders for the presidency, Obama was clearly the most dovish when compared with his two principal rivals, neocon Republican John McCain and hawkish Democrat Hillary Clinton.

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Clinton says Nobel a recognition of Obama's vision

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she thinks President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of "his attitude toward America's role in the world."

"His willingness to really kind of challenge everyone ... restores a kind of image and appreciation of our country," Clinton said in an NBC "Today" show interview broadcast Monday.

Clinton said she didn't think winning the award would have any effect on Obama's deliberations over what to do next in Afghanistan, including the question of whether to send large numbers of additional troops into a country where violence has recently surged.

"I think that the president makes each decision on the merits," she said in the interview taped during her visit to Zurich, Switzerland. She said the Nobel award is "not going to influence" the tough decisions Obama faces on Afghanistan.

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[ProSense]

1. Leading Cuban dissidents cheer Obama's Nobel prize

Leading Cuban dissidents cheer Obama's Nobel prize

HAVANA – Many of the 75 activists jailed in a 2003 Cuban government crackdown on political dissent are congratulating Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a letter released Monday to international journalists, 29 of those imprisoned six years ago said Obama "has become a global symbol, especially for us who, under difficult conditions, are defending Cubans' right to democracy."

In another letter, 21 of their wives, mothers and other female relatives also cheered Obama.

Fifty-four dissidents remain imprisoned on allegations they conspired with the U.S. to topple Cuba's government. Those freed were granted medical parole or forced into exile in Spain. One was released after completing a six-year sentence.