WaPo Editorial: Neda of Iran should have gotten Nobel, not Obama
The Post nails this thing on two counts. First they note what morons the Nobel Committee were to give Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for Awesomeness.
But in offering this latest Euro-celebration of the 2008 election, the Norwegian committee has also demonstrated a certain cluelessness about America. If anything animates Mr. Obama’s critics in this country, it is the impression that he is the focus of a global cult of personality. This prize, at this time, only feeds that impression, and thus does him no favors politically.
Actually the pick doesn’t just ‘feed the impression’ of a cult of personality. It proves it.
Their pick would have been Neda, the woman gunned down in the street by Iranian thugs after the election. I agree.
This year, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in Iran braved ferocious official violence to demand their right to vote and to speak freely. Dozens were killed, thousands imprisoned. One of those killed was a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan; her shooting by thugs working for the Islamist theocracy, captured on video, moved the world. A posthumous award for Neda, as the avatar of a democratic movement in Iran, would have recognized the sacrifices that movement has made and encouraged its struggle in a dark hour. Democracy in Iran would not only set a people free, it would also dramatically improve the chances for world peace, since the regime that murdered her is pursuing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
The Nobel Committee’s cluelessness is magnified when you compare their winner, Obama, to someone like Neda. Obama is unable to recognize Iran as a despotic regime that kills its own people for speaking out. Neda recognized it as exactly that. Obama did nothing about it. Neda paid with her life. Maybe if Obama had done something to stop Iran from crushing the protests, he would have been deserving of the prize. And Neda would still be alive.
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What more would you have Obama “do” about this summer’s terrible events in Iran?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this question, and in particular whether or not Neda in particular and the Iranian protesters in the abstract should have received the Peace Prize. And I’m afraid that it would have been a bad idea for the same reason that I thought our government needed to take care with the way that it responded to the crisis – because of the way that Western support is used by the regime to allege a plot against Iran.
While there were considerable electoral irregularities in June, and a gathering momentum for reform, many Iranians continue to side with the ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad. It is a country with a strong anti-Western sentiment. Wading into this fray with as much truculence as you seem to be implying would likely be counterproductive in the short-term.
I’m also disappointed with your hyperbole that Neda’s death is in some way President Obama’s fault. Plenty of pro-reform Iranians were victims of illegal imprisonment, torture, and extra-judicial killings during President Bush’s term. Could I blame him for what happened to them?
“Maybe if Obama had done something to stop Iran from crushing the protests, he would have been deserving of the prize.”
What exactly do you think the president should have done?
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I agree with you as far as there were better people to hand the prize to. There are many people who aren’t global celebrities who need their work recognized.
Dead people can’t be nominated for a Nobel Prize. Check it:
http://nobelprize.org/nomination/nomination_facts.html
Yep. You are right. WaPo and I have it wrong.
In response to another comment. See in context »