Word: afghanistans
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Interesting? Definitely. Expected? Not at all. Just two days earlier, the Associated Press had run a story from Oslo saying "Chinese dissidents" were leading the odds to win the prize, followed by human rights activists in Russia, Colombia, Jordan, Afghanistan and Vietnam. The article also added, cryptically, "U.S. President Barack Obama is thought to have been nominated but it's unclear on what grounds...
...need. But even if the award does nothing for Obama's ability to achieve his goals, some observers hope it will reinforce the President's will to press for peace. Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, peacefully resolving the Iran nuclear standoff, and ensuring long-term stability in Iraq and Afghanistan all require that the President take massive political risks. In that sense, adding him preemptively to the pantheon of those who have already done so in the past may be a bid to boost the courage Obama will need to truly earn his place among them...
President Barack Obama made time for a brief statement about his Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday, before heading in to a more pressing engagement - a high-powered White House strategy session on the next phase of his war in Afghanistan. That was just one indication that this year's peace prize was, as Obama himself put it, honoring aspiration rather than achievement...
...Afghanistan Far from ending the conflict in Afghanistan, President Obama came into office declaring it the "war of necessity", and immediately ordered a further 21,000 U.S. troops into the fight. Since then, the sheer scale of the challenge has become apparent to his Administration, particularly after his commander on the ground said a further 40,000 troops were needed to turn the situation around. Even if, as now seems possible, Obama seeks a political solution in Afghanistan that involves some sort of power-sharing deal with the Taliban, the implementation of that policy won't look much like peacemaking...
...their part, Israelis are wary that they will be asked to pay a price for America's foreign-policy blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the form of a regional settlement unfavorable to the Jewish state. Some polls show that only 4% of Israelis think Obama is "pro-Israeli." Bucking the trend of Israeli leaders' avoidance of confrontations with the White House, Netanyahu has seen his popularity spike as a result of his defiance of U.S. demands for a complete settlement freeze...