‘Nobel Peace Prize was given to Obama in error’

As U.S. gathers coalition for a possible military strike on Syria, it seems the era of cold war between the west and Russia is back.

Citing war-time Prime Minister of Britain, Winston Churchill's example of a politically motivated honour given to him as winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature,1953 for his World War II memoirs, a  Nobel Laureate in Science, Zhores Alferov has argued that U.S. President Barack Obama did not deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.

 Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples'.

 Alferov who is the vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a 2000 Nobel Physics Prize laureate noted that "sometimes the prize is awarded with elements of great political influence,”
Churchill, for example, according to the Russian scientist, allegedly said, 'I hope it’s not for peace!'.

U.S. President, Barack Obama

"President Barack Obama should not have been given the Nobel Peace Prize", Alferov said in St Pettersburg, Russia.  “I was surprised when Obama was awarded the prize. From my point of view, he doesn’t deserve it at all”.

Alferov's argument came when asked what he thought of Obama’s award as the president was planning to ask US Congress for approval of a military strike against Syria. “It should never have been given to him,” he stressed. Alferov noted that in “hard sciences” such as physics, chemistry and mathematics, Nobel prizes are often awarded only for outstanding work that has led to scientific revelations and stand the test of time.

He further probed other areas of the Nobel Prizes “Literature is already something of a specific area. There are defined attitudes of taste. And sometimes the prize is awarded with elements of great political influence,” he said.

However, it occur to me that what seems like a revisit of the cold-war era may have inspired Alferov's argument given the posture of Obama over the civil war in Syria. This much I distilled from a twit credited to the head of the Russian parliament’s International Affairs Committee. 

Alexei Pushkov,. He was said to written on his Twitter page Friday that Obama should be stripped of the prize if the US attacks Syria.