{"id":729,"date":"2009-10-13T21:42:58","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T16:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mohamediqbalp.wordpress.com\/2009\/10\/13\/nobel-prize-is-not-too-early-to-help-obama\/"},"modified":"2009-10-13T21:42:58","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T16:12:58","slug":"nobel-prize-is-not-too-early-to-help-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/nobel-prize-is-not-too-early-to-help-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Prize is not too early to help Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/p>\n

By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf <\/span>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t Commentary by <\/span>
\n Tuesday, October 13, 2009<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Listen to the Article<\/u><\/b> <\/a> – Powered by<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Only
\na few months into office, President Obama has won the Nobel Peace
\nPrize. Even the White House was stunned by the announcement. Two other
\nsitting presidents have won the prize. But Theodore Roosevelt had to
\nbroker a peace agreement to end a war between Russia and Japan to get
\nhis, and Woodrow Wilson had to create the League of Nations. <\/div>\n
Obama
\ngot his for a vision of world peace. But it is a vision that has
\ncaptivated the world, even if it has not yet produced the desired
\nresults. <\/div>\n
In
\nbestowing the award, the Nobel committee is saying the United States
\nagain is the leader of the world and Obama holds the bully pulpit. The
\naward should be a catalyst that motivates other world leaders to help
\nhim. <\/div>\n
The
\ncommittee also is endorsing the American people, who overcame centuries
\nof slavery and racism to fulfill the ideals of the Declaration of
\nIndependence to elect the first African-American president. Martin
\nLuther King won a Nobel Peace Prize for his vision of an end to racial
\ndiscrimination. Obama almost sounded like Martin Luther King in his
\nspeeches outlining his foreign agenda. He, too, talked about a dream \u2013
\nto end terrorism, eliminate nuclear weapons, bring peace to the Middle
\nEast, promote democracy and encourage economic development. He said:
\nHere\u2019s my dream, I will do my part, but I need your help. The world \u2013
\nand the Nobel committee \u2013 responded to that dream. <\/div>\n
From
\nhis first day in office, Obama established an ambitious agenda to bring
\naffordable health care to all Americans while salvaging the nation\u2019s
\nfinancial systems and stimulating the economy. <\/div>\n
But
\nhe did not ignore international issues. He has transformed US foreign
\npolicy. He committed the United States to end the proliferation of
\nnuclear weapons and even to ban them altogether. He pushed from Day One
\nfor a Middle East peace agreement. He reached out to America\u2019s
\ntraditional enemies \u2013 to jaw-jaw rather war-war, as Winston Churchill
\nfamously said. <\/div>\n
This
\nhas caught the attention of people around the world who had come to
\nfear unilateral US military action. Obama\u2019s speeches to the Muslim
\nworld in Ankara and Cairo were truly historic. Never before had a US
\npresident spoken directly to the Muslim people in the capital of an
\nIslamic country. <\/div>\n
He
\ndisplayed a sensitivity to Islam and its central role in Muslim
\ncountries that no other president had acknowledged. And he shattered
\nthe paradigm of a \u201cClash of Civilizations\u201d \u2013 that Islamic countries and
\nthe West were destined to constant warfare. <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
People
\nhave asked, where are the results? The Middle East is no closer to
\npeace. Iran continues to defy the US. The war in Afghanistan is
\ndeteriorating. <\/div>\n
It\u2019s
\nway too early yet. I can tell you from my travels around the Muslim
\nworld in the last few months, even in Iran, I have been told that every
\nMuslim leader wants to work with President Obama. While they must be
\nconstant to their own policies, they need to show their people that
\nthey want to improve relations with the United States. That\u2019s a major
\nchange. <\/div>\n
Even Iran
\nsent its foreign minister to Washington. Anything that can be done to
\nresolve the conflict between Iran and the United States would have huge
\nrepercussions in resolving the conflicts from Palestine, through Iraq
\nand Afghanistan to Pakistan. <\/div>\n
The
\nannouncement comes just as Obama must decide what to do about
\nAfghanistan. The president is not rushing to add more troops. He
\nrecognizes that a large part of General Stanley A. McChrystal\u2019s
\nstrategy calls for engaging the Afghans within their own culture and
\nreligion to win their hearts and minds. Peace in Afghanistan can only
\ncome this way. <\/div>\n
The
\nUS government recognizes that even with the combined power of NATO it
\ncannot resolve all of these conflicts. My hopeful expectation is that
\nthe United States will invite other Muslim leaders, who understand the
\nunderlying cultural issues, to help in resolving these conflicts. <\/div>\n
In
\nchoosing Obama for the Nobel Prize, the committee chose hope over
\ndespair. They chose the ideals of the United States over cynicism. And
\nthey chose to support a young, visionary leader at a crucial moment in
\nworld history when so much can be gained or so much can be lost. <\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf <\/em><\/u><\/strong>is
\nchairman of the Cordoba Initiative, an independent, non-partisan and
\nmulti-national project that seeks to use religion to improve
\nMuslim-West relations. (www.cordobainitiative.org) He is the author of
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s Right with Islam is What\u2019s Right With America.\u201dHe wrote this
\ncommentary for <\/em>THE DAILY STAR.<\/em><\/strong><\/u><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Commentary by Tuesday, October 13, 2009  Listen to the Article – Powered by Only a few months into office, President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Even the White House was stunned by the announcement. Two other sitting presidents have won the prize. But Theodore Roosevelt had to broker a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iqsoft.in\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}