Judging by the headline, one might think I would talk about something related to the protests and riots that continue to happen across our country. I won’t be though. I’m going to detail how President Trump receives no recognition for the peace he has achieved.
We all know former president Obama was given the Nobel peace prize in 2009. He was awarded the prize without dissent. Here’s a bit of what the chairman had to say about the board’s decision. “We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit [to] what he is trying to do.”. Over the preceding year, Obama had mostly made speeches and political promises. In other words, nothing at all. Just ask NBC’s Matt Lauer, who at the time said, “Not to be rude, but Obama hasn’t done anything.”.
The president was nominated for the Nobel less than two weeks into the first year of his Presidency, and by the time he was given the award it had only been 9 months. Some might argue that he made some policy decisions early on that were aimed at peace. However, given such a short amount of time, it could not be known whether the policies would work. Furthermore, according to William A. Galson at the time,” Obama was weighing whether or not to send an additional 40,00 troops to Afghanistan”.
Now it’s 2020, and our current president, Donald Trump, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I would hope this isn’t news to you, but considering the state of the leading media outlets, you probably haven’t heard much about it. If Obama can win the prize for doing almost nothing, President Trump should certainly be recognized with the Nobel for doing all the things he has been able to accomplish.
Rather than just making a few nice sounding speeches about peace, Donald Trump and his cabinet members, chiefly Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, have actually been able to achieve real, measurable peace. Their efforts while holding office have ultimately culminated in what is probably going to be known as one of the greatest foreign policy achievements in modern history; the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
For Israel, this agreement points towards greater signs of acceptance in the region. Establishing better relations with Arab countries has been a goal for Israel. For the UAE, it allows them to build economic and diplomatic ties with Israel. It could also allow the UAE to have better access to U.S. weaponry. The agreement between the two countries was reached with the Trump administration serving as a go-between.
The current administration has also been able to make new agreements with Kosovo and Serbia, and most recently, Bahrain. The agreement with Serbia and Kosovo also bolstered those countries’ relations with Israel along with better relations between themselves. The latest deal with Bahrain is an agreement for them and Israel to normalize their relations much like the UAE. All of this happened within a 30-day span; and there are suspicions more agreements with countries throughout the middle-east will be coming sooner rather than later. Add on top of that the fact that under the Trump administration, the power of ISIS has been greatly reduced from what it once was.
Pres. Trump has come closer to ending our involvement in Afghanistan than Obama ever did; having announced that all of the troops in the region will be withdrawn by 2021. He has also convinced many of our NATO allies to do their part in securing the world.
As I was finishing this article, I learned Donald Trump has not only been nominated once, but twice for the prize. It is clear that President Trump has done more to advance peace across the globe than Obama ever did, and if Donald Trump is not awarded the Nobel, it only shows that the committee making this decision has no concern for actual achievements that can be measured; there is no recognition for true peace, and that wouldn’t be serving justice.
