Obama comes not with peace but a sword

Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel peace prize, but this morning New Statesman’s political editor Mehdi Hasan is less than impressed with the American president’s record. Having promised a sharp break with the Bush era, Obama, Mehdi argues, has “stepped into the shoes of his disgraced predecessor,” notably on foreign policy. After announcing that he would wind down the war in Iraq, he has merely diverted US troops, spies and diplomats to the war in Afghanistan and operations across the border in Pakistan. “He has approved air strikes there that have killed more civilians in nine months than died in US bombings in the final year of the previous administration.” Reacting to today’s news from the Nobel committee, Mehdi, in a blog entitled “Is this a joke?” further adds that “the cult of Obama has elevated him to a god-like, saint-like, superhuman position on the global political landscape.” He is receiving “an award for peace before he has actually achieved peace”.