Obama could earn his peace prize by keeping war away from Iran

Much has been made of President Barack Obama's early and, to some, undeserved Nobel Peace Prize. How could a president leading a war in Iraq and a surge in Afghanistan possibly deserve a peace prize?

The answer may be that Obama is the only statesman with the moral imagination to avert a third, and far more catastrophic, calamity — a war with Iran.

In his Nobel speech, Obama was the first to concede that "compared to some of the giants of history who have received the prize — Schweitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight." But there is nothing slight or simple about Obama's quest for peace with Iran. Iran is the key to unraveling the tapestry of war in the Middle East.

The forces aligned against peace in the Middle East are formidable. Virtually all the hawks have a stake in discrediting Obama's diplomacy.

Obama's peace offensive not only threatens the anti-American world view of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, but the political and economic monopoly of criminal cartels plundering Iran in the name of Islam. Resurrecting the Great Satan is the only way the ayatollah and his revolutionary guards can unite the Iranian people behind their odious coup. Even if Iran's nuclear arsenal were nothing more than Ahmadinejad rattling a tin can, exchanging the illusion of power to secure peace and prosperity would further undo his pretenses.

The Arab world also has an interest in war. Having funded Saddam, the Saudis and other Gulf states view the United States military as their new warhorse against Iran. As long as the United States views shia Iran as a threat, it will ignore the toxic role its ally, Saudi Arabia, plays in exporting their intolerant brand of Wahhabi Islam into Afghanistan, Pakistan and East Africa through proxies such as the Taliban, al-Qaida and Pakistan's ISI.