Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis
on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for
resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament
and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic
challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Ignore the bit about democracy and human rights. The evidence shows quite strongly that the opposite is true. China, Iran and Russia are
imprisoning or murdering dissidents without the slightest regard for what the President of the United States thinks. Britain released the
Lockerbie bomber -- which it would not have done on Bush's watch. And, to placate China, which brutally cracked down on Tibet only last year,
President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama.
The Nobel committee is really interested in "multilateral diplomacy" regaining "a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United
Nations and other international institutions can play." When "multilateral diplomacy" regains "a central position" in world affairs, the
United States will be sidelined, reduced from superpower to just another member state of the United Nations. That is what the committee is
after.
The committee couldn't slip Obama cash under the table to undermine America's interests. The president is far too moral a man to ever accept
such a thing. But the committee could present him with the world's most prestigious award in the hope that it would steel his resolve to
remain utterly passive and malleable when conducting America's business abroad. And that's just what it did.
