Public CompanyUnintended consequences of peace
Obama/Peace Prize: Ask a ten-year-old to make just one wish come true and almost invariably the child will hope for peace on earth. That’s wonderful – but not worthy of a Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee seems to think differently. It has awarded its prestigious Peace Prize to Barack Obama.
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The committee – whose former secretary once publicly wondered why the world cares what “five internationally relatively unknown Norwegians may decide about who has done the most for peace” – didn’t bestow the award for any actual accomplishments, but for Obama’s efforts over the past year to promote peace, particularly nuclear disarmament.
That puts the US president in a pantheon along with Mother Teresa, Aung San Suu Kyi, United Nations peacekeeping forces and many others with verifiable claims for enhancing peace. Even Henry Kissinger, the hawkish US Secretary of State who won the award in 1973, had signed a peace treaty to end the war in Vietnam.
Obama has clearly calmed European nerves about his predecessor’s unilateralist tendencies. But nine months into the Obama presidency, the many problems George W. Bush faced are not obviously any closer to resolution.
America’s allies are heartened to hear a US president speak of engagement with the world, and those with good knowledge of English are pleased with Obama’s pronunciation of “nuclear”. Yet Iran is still brandishing its nuclear ambitions and North Korea is still goading the world with missile launches and underground testing.
Even in the conflicts where Obama has power to change the course of events, he has few claims to laurels. Iraq is somewhat becalmed, but not because of this president’s decisions. The president has dithered as the insurgency in Afghanistan – and its spillover into Pakistan - has worsened in recent months. Peace looks even more elusive in that graveyard of empires than in Iraq. Vision is one thing, accomplishment another. By awarding Obama its accolade, the committee expressed its disapproval of America’s more recent foreign policy, but the effect of a prize could be the opposite of what is intended.
The premature award has already irritated Obama’s growing army of critics at home. Foreign leaders may also respond unhelpfully, either from jealousy or because they now expect too much of the US leader. The prize could turn into a burden, limiting Obama’s ability to do things that would justify the committee’s decision. There is a way to make this decision serve both peace and Obama’s reputation. The president should emulate Le Duc Tho, who was awarded the prize along with Kissinger. The Vietnamese diplomat turned it down, saying that there was not yet enough peace to merit such an accolade. A look around the world today gives ample reason for Obama to do the same.