In a triumph of hope over achievement, President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” according to the Nobel Committee. It’s amazing what a few good speeches and switching the focus of attack from Iraq to Afghanistan can do.
However perhaps the Nobel Committee were not so much rewarding his achievements as trying to influence his future actions as debate in Washington rages over whether to escalate the war in Afghanistan. President Obama is not the first reforming US President to be bounced into a military quagmire by the military industrial complex – President Kennedy suffered a similar fate in the early 1960s and his assassination put paid to his re-evaluation of that war effort.
Obama is the fourth US President to be awarded the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919, and Jimmy Carter (a long time after he left office) in 2002. At least these Presidents had some real achievements to their name. Let’s hope that Obama’s award – like that of Henry Kissinger – does not cheapen the world’s most prestigious honour.
Perhaps this honour will strengthen the hand of the “doves” in Washington who seem to be fighting a losing battle against the hawks trying to get Obama to commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan.
However the comparison with Kissinger is perhaps apt. Has Obama yet shown that he is anything other than a Realpolitik practitioner when it comes to foreign and domestic policy? The contrast with the ideological neo-conservatives of the Bush era has been so great that it has been possible for Obama to differentiate himself from his predecessor without challenging the dominant interests in Washington in any significant way to date.
Even his much touted health care reforms are predicated on a deal with Big Pharma to guarantee their long term revenues in return for their support for his Health Insurance reforms. There has been virtually no progress on financial regulatory reform, and progress on climate change regulation has been desultory to date. Perhaps Obama’s appearance in Oslo on December 10th. will coincide with a visit to the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen and a dramatic initiative on Climate change.
We can but hope, but perhaps this isn’t so much about Obama and more about the world welcoming the US back into the comity of nations aka the civilised world? It would be a real pity if the inventors of hype and spin took from this award the lesson that all that was needed to gain the support and approval of the world was to appoint a better PR guy.
We need to see some real progress on the Middle East, Climate Change, Global Financial Regulation, and disarmament. Let this be a spur to greater ambition and achievement and not an excuse for a self-satisfied conclusion by the US ruling class that the world now endorses US policies without ever having to change them very substantially from the Bush regime.
I see Oui has beaten me to the punch on this topic! However I think it may be worthwhile to have a few different takes on this topic. For instance in Norway they are gobsmacked…
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Obama is the fourth US President to be awarded the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson* in 1919, and Jimmy Carter (a long time after he left office) in 2002. At least these Presidents had some real achievements to their name. Let’s hope that Obama’s award – like that of Henry Kissinger* – does not cheapen the world’s most prestigious honour.
* shared Nobel Prize
“I am convinced, Gentlemen, that the words expressed here by the President of the United States and the aim for which he proposes to work, with the aid of the Peace Prize just awarded him, will gain worldwide approbation. It is incontrovertible, as President Roosevelt says, that peace in all its aspects, peace among mankind, peace between nations, peace between social classes, peace between individuals – all are equally important. The one cannot, so to speak, be divorced from the other. If we are to promote civilization and the well-being of mankind as a whole, we can do it most effectively by securing world peace, for the entire history of the world teaches us that war and devastation are inseparable. The ravages of war arrest the progress of nations culturally, materially, socially, and politically, perhaps for generations.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Hi Frank, ‘gobsmacked’ indeed – very mixed comments from the ‘experts and pundits’ in Norway.
Most positive is Jan Egeland – the previous, successful Undersecretary-General for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (now; Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)).
My translation from the Norwegian (interview in Aftenposten:
– Jeg synes dette er en strålende pris. Jeg er glad for at komiteen er i stand til å vente til siste sekund før de bestemmer seg, for jeg tror at det var Obamas atomresolusjon i New York (24. september, red.anm), som innebærer begynnelsen på slutten for atomvåpnene, som var utslagsgivende her.
I believe this is an excellent award. I am glad that the Committee is able to wait until the last second before making up its mind, because I believe that it was Obama’s nuclear resolution in New York [24 September], which entails the end of the nuclear weapons, which was decisive here.
– Det er ikke naivt å gi ham prisen, fordi det er presedens for at man skal inspirere til handling. Det man ikke minst gjør her, er å sende et sterkt signal til disse sure grinebiterne som sitter på gjerdet rundt om i Europa, og for den del i en splittet amerikansk opinion, som sier at det Obama prøver å få til bare er masse store ord.
It was not naive to award him the prize, because there is precedence for inspiring [future] action. What is – not the least – done here, is to send a strong signal to these surly grouches [ouch] sitting on the fence around Europe, and, for that matter a split American public, who say that what Obama is trying to achieve are only big words.
– Jeg har møtt Obama ved flere anledninger, og hadde blant annet en fantastisk samtale med ham da jeg var undergeneralsekretær i FN. Han ga meg personlig støtte for det arbeidet jeg gjorde i forhold til Darfur, og hadde en sjelden holdning blant amerikanseke politikere om at USA måtte hjelpe FN i å lykkes.
I have met Obama on several occasions, and, among others [conversations – not people], had a fantastic conversation with him when I was USG in the UN. He gave me personal support for the work I did in relations to Darfur, and had a rare attitude amongst American politicians that the US had to assist the UN in succeeding.
– Jeg var like overrasket som alle andre over at Obama vant prisen. Det viser at komiteen er blitt like oppdatert som en nettavis. Vi er vant til at komiteen er ganske treg. Prisen til Martti Ahtisaari i fjor kom jo minst tre år for sent.
I was as surprised as everyone else that Obama won the prize. It demonstrates that the Committee is just as up-to-date as an online paper. We are accustomed to the Committee being fairly slow. The prize to Martti Ahtisaari last year was at least three years late.
Great comment! Would you mind posting it at http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2009/10/9/63647/0579 as well as it informs the debate on the reasoning behind this award?
Will do!
(I was just over there, reading the comments in your post there).