In a surprising announcement (that perhaps should not have been so surprising) the Nobel
Committee announced this morning that the 2009 Nobel Peace Price has been awarded to President Barrack Obama. They cited his efforts to reach out to the Islamic world, and his use of diplomacy rather than unilateralism in the United States’ foreign policy.
Simply put, President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for one primary characteristic of his… he is not President George W. Bush.
I think it goes to highlight the fear under which the world lived during the years of the Bush Presidency. Justified or not, there was a deep fear that the country with the world’s strongest military (especially against actual nation-states), with the world’s largest economy, and with the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal was becoming more and more imperial during the Bush Presidency. Justified or not, many around the world had begun to fear the United States, not look upon our nation as an ally or partner.
Even long time allies felt bullied and disrespected by the United States, and the idea of American Exceptionalism was moving from doctrine to evangelical mission for the portion of our political establishment that controlled the White House. In some parts of the world, the shadow of the domination of the Roman Empire was beginning to draw long, as the United States had begun exhibiting some of its worst characteristics.
Some are going to say, and quite loudly, that this Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama is premature… and if this prize was actually about Obama and his accomplishments since coming into office they would probably be right. But this prize is not really about anything President Obama has done or will do… it is about who he is… and a prize for the country that elected him and allowed the entire world to heave a sigh of relief.
President Obama and the American People won this Nobel Peace Prize on the day that President Obama stepped into the White House and President Bush left for his last flight on Marine One. In that light, the award is not premature at all.
Yours in faith,
David
Addendum: It appears SNL agrees with me…
I’ll say it softly. It’s premature. Peter Binart had a good column on it: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-09/obamas-nobel-farce
If anything, it high lights Obama’s weaknesses. It’s an award for what the Nobel Committee expects Obama to do, not what he’s none, and for anyone to seem that malleable is not a good thing. Obama already suffers from too high expectations. Raising the bar on him does him or the world, or prospects for Peace, no favors.
I disagree… because this is not an award for President Obama…. it is an Anti-Award for President George W. Bush.
Yours in Faith,
David
I don’t disagree with you that it’s an anti-Bush award. That’s for certain. But I think Beinart is right to point out the Nobel Committee sees the award as a moment to influence Obama and future policy. Too direct behavior rather than award behavior. I’d be insulted by that.
Getting something undeserved leaves a person feeling beholden. I’ve had it happen to myself –on far smaller scale of course but the human pschology much the same– here is a gift; now you owe. For that to happen to a leader is not good.
The world has no reason to heave a sigh of relief as nothing has changed. Western European sentiment has improved, but what else?
There are plenty of examples of President Obama behaving completely contrary to peace, but I’ll cite only one: He campaigned and followed through on escalating the war in Afghanistan. That’s war, as in opposite of peace.
NS,
I bet you would not argue with me that perception often trumps reality in human behavior… and that is exactly what I think is at work here.
It does not matter if anything has actually changed, because there is a perception that it has changed around the world. That percpetion is at play, not anything remotely resembling objective reality…
Just like always.
Yours in faith,
David
Everyone agrees that President Obama doesn’t have the accomplishments to deserve the award. I’m saying that he hasn’t even changed the perception that much. What adversary of ours has a better perception of us now that Obama is in office?
I don’t know about perceptions but it’s escalated expectations to the point where Obama’s going to be a bigger joke than SNL made of him last weekend.
Distinctions:
Obama accepted it humbly, stating that he didn’t feel he’d really earned it. (Bill, it’s hard to mock humility. They might make fun of the committee, but targeting Obama would probably come off as lame, in this case.)
NS, what adversary has…–adversary? You think that the prize EVER impresses adversaries? Silly. It may have burnished his image (and ours) with nations that are, or could be, our allies. Which is what statements from many in such nations echo.
David, yes. Bush so lowered expectations and raised fears that the return of policies that aren’t pure Hollywood cowboyism are embraced with delight. Still, Obama *has* made efforts, reached out… done things that his predecessor could have. This may give him a little more weight in actually creating peace.
This is one award that will be weighed in retrospect as either prescient or foolish. If it comes to pass that people feel he really did deserve it, the whining will simply look petulant.
[i]Bill, it’s hard to mock humility…[/i]
Mock…think worse than that..imagine Obama in tails accepting the Award in Oslo next to carnage of the bloody day in Afghanistan. Especially if its American bled shed as in FOB Jackson a few days ago.
The Nobel Committee did Obama no favor with this award.
Perhaps, Bill, they did.
It may provide the emotional spur for the president to find a way to remove US/NATO troops from the Graveyard of Empire, a combat region that the USSR failed to pacify and hold even though it shared a border… a region that Russia is now happily allowing us to access through their territory in return for other diplomatic concessions…. (An entirely reasonable thing to do, I guess–if you really, really, really want it, America, we’ll sell it to you…) Ditto (more or less) Pakistan–an unstable nation that has its own problems which are being exacerbated by Afghanistan’s (I believe there are at least 6 million Afghan refugees…)
We’re engaged in fighting in some of the most rugged, brutal terrain on earth, terrain that’s almost made for guerilla war, and which confounds many high tech solutions. We’re attempting to support a government which *is* weak, and *is* corrupt, and *is* unable to extend its power over the various warlords (allied or not to the government)–meaning most of the country.
Afghanistan’s a bit like Ireland, or Wales–it’s history’s almost completely the story of vicious squabbling and infighting by various groups within the country… until an invader sticks its nose in, whereupon people can (and do) come together to chase it out.
The solution won’t be military power from outside.
We screwed the pooch in the Reagan era, when the USSR gave up… and we just left, instead of acting like we really were friends of the Afghans, and helped them build and rebuild their nation and society. That train left the station. There’s no going back and getting on it–the Afghans already KNOW that the USA can’t be depended on; we will leave… we did it when we were their ‘friends’, and they’ve got that history and the rest of their long history, to confirm that the external invader will eventually withdraw. It’s just a question of how much blood and suffering… and Afghanistan’s steeped in that.
We can’t fix it. We could figure out a way to withdraw and impose external constraints–sticks and carrots–from the outside. But we’ll have to do so making common cause with the interests of Russia, Iran and Pakistan. Which is do-able… since none of them want terrorism and so forth being exported.
But for now? As long as the US wants to bleed in Central Asia, I imagine that Russia will permit it (and profit), and Pakistan will… unless the resulting destabilization causes that nation to fall into radical hands (with nukes…).
The committee may have done Obama–and America–a favor. Stop pouring blood and money down a bottomless hole.
The moment I heard he won the prize I thought the same thing. 🙂