Weaponized Nobel Peace Prize

“Now we see the Nobel Foundation has awarded the peace prize to a person who is convicted for repeated violation of laws and committing criminal actions. We condemn this a biased and politically-motivated measure,” the Iranian Foreign Minister Spokesman Naser Kanani in reaction said. 

The criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize and its instrumentalization for political purposes has a way long history, perhaps as long as the century-long life of the prize itself. 

The Nobel Peace Prize, which was established in 1901 by the chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel to celebrate outstanding human rights achievements, has been criticized for years as a geopolitical magic wand in the hands of the the West used to award the political actions and not to celebrate the achievements. 

The Nobel Foundation consists of five people who are appointed by the Norwegian parliament. One of the most distinct doubts about the validity of this prize is that this foundation reflects the political view of the Norwegian government, with two members from the Labor Party, two from the Conservative Party, and one from Progress Party. This issue has raised continuous questions about the independence of this foundation, which is seen as a means of promoting Western values and agenda. Another criticism and a damage to the validity of the prize is the role of media propaganda, which reflect the political agenda of governments, in influencing the choice of the winners of the prize. 

A look at the list of winners of the past years and the existence of some big questions about these choices very well explains the criticism against the prize. 

Perhaps one of the most controversial Nobel choices was the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973 for mediating a ceasefire in North Vietnam, while the role of this prominent American foreign policy strategist in designing policies that led to the killing of innocent people in different parts of the world, including in the bombing of Cambodia in the same year or the coup against popular governments in Chile and Cuba, are well proven. And even on the same day, Kissinger, ordered the bombing of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. 

In this connection, Unni Turrettini, the author of Betraying the Nobel: The Secrets and Corruption Behind the Nobel Peace Prize, makes revelations on the reason behind Kissinger choice for the prize. 

“This [prize awarding] was motivated by Norway’s desire to strengthen relations with the United States during the Cold War, when Norway was concerned about threats from the Soviet Union.... The US Secretary of State had ordered the attack on Hanoi during the negotiations,” an excerpt of the book reads. 

Another controversial awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was to former US Secretary of State George Marshal for his plans for reconstruction of post-war Europe, including Norway. 

Additionally, picking former US President Jimmy Carter in 2002 for the prize once again highlighted the selectivity in choosing the candidates for the prize. The reason for his picking for the prize was said to be his opposition to the hawkish policies of President George W. Bush in Iraq, according to Turrettini, this behavior was applied even with more severity to more serious opponents of Iraq war like former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei. 

This biased approach continued in the next years. In 2009, Barack Obama who himself was shocked by the Nobel Foundation’s choice was awarded the prize for his anti-war activities almost 8 months after taking the post as the US president. It took only a few months to prove the Nobel choice was ridiculous. He added 30,000 to the number of the American troops serving in Afghanistan and tripled the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing a large number of civilians and innocent people. Even the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), the biggest non-nuclear bomb, was dropped in Afghanistan on the Taliban position under Obama. 

These Obama actions even drew resentment from former Nobel Prize chief who in his diary wrote that even many of supporters of Obama believe that awarding him was a mistake. He added that the foundation did not get what it expected. 

Aung San Suu Kyi was another winner of the prize, in 1991, for her opposition to the military rule in Myanmar. But to surprise of all, when she later became State Chancellor of Myanmar not only she did not mitigate the violations of the army and government against the Rohingya Muslim minority, but also under her, the ethnic cleansing became systemic in 2017. More interestingly, in 2019, Suu Kyi defended the inhumane actions of the Myanmar army in the persecution of the Muslim minority at the International Court of Justice, which led to requests for revocation of her prize. 

Abiy Ahmad who in the initial months of his premiership ended the 20-year war with Eritrea was another Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A year after, he put Ethiopia in an ethnic war, something led to the Oslo-based foundation to issue a rare warning and call for end of the war and the critical humanitarian conditions in Tigray. It named Abiy Ahmad the man responsible for ending the clashes and helping restoration of peace. 

Given all these, the instrumental use of the Nobel Peace Prize for political agenda and for running a media propaganda against Iran at a time the country is facing ‘hybrid warfare’ with political propaganda of enemies at its center is of no influence on the world community and actually the little validity this prize secured over the distant years is now totally spoiled with the recent biased choice.