The Nobel Prize with an Asterisk

Despite
the graciousness of his speech at the White House last Friday,
President Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize did have an air
slightly reminiscent of Lincoln's story about the man who was tarred,
feathered and ridden out of town on a rail -- if it wasn't for the
honor of the thing he'd just as soon walk.

Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a member of the Nobel committee that chose him,
told the Associated Press this week, "I looked at his face when he was
on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to
Norway and he didn't look particularly happy."

After all, Obama has been President for barely nine months and yes, he
has made some fine speeches in support of peace and bettering
international relations. But was that enough to merit the award? Was he
winning it more for who he's not -- George W. Bush -- than for who he
is?

Sadly, much of the initial reaction in the United States was churlish
and scornful, ill-informed, and frankly, as un-American as those of the
knee-jerk right who cheered when Obama's quick trip to Copenhagen
failed to win the Olympics for his Chicago hometown. We are less
serious as a nation than we should be. The empty-headedness and inanity
of much of the media and political response to the announcement bears
testament to that unhappy truth. We would do better to see ourselves as
others see us than to scream in protest and sarcasm when another part
of the world wishes to honor our President and us.

But some of us sincerely felt that it may have been better for the
President and the country NOT to have accepted the Nobel -- to have
made a gracious speech of thanks but no thanks -- regretfully declining
the award until he had proven himself worthy through actual deeds and
positive signs of progress. If nothing else, it would have silenced at
least some of the critics and given President Obama some breathing room
to do what he says he wants to do without the restraints of even
greater global expectations.

Take a look at the world around us, and America's place in it.
President Obama talks the talk when it comes to climate change and
nuclear arms control, curbing the atomic ambitions of Iran and North
Korea, encouraging both harmony and diversity among the religions of
the world. All well and good; even exemplary.

But little concrete action has been taken. For all the talk of closing
our prison in Guantanamo, chances are that he will not meet his
deadline of shutting it down within a year. Many of the transgressions
on human rights that took place there and elsewhere in the name of a
global war on terror continue, unresolved and unpunished.

He has spoken out for a two-state solution for Israelis and
Palestinians but has made no progress, the window of opportunity
slammed down on his fingers by Israel, with no help from Hamas. Our
troops are still in Iraq, despite promises of significant withdrawals,
and the Nobel announcement came in the midst of deciding whether or not
to send even more American men and women into Afghanistan, where many
of them may die. When told about Obama's new honor, an Afghan bank
worker said to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, "I'm not sure I understand. This isn't for peace here, is it? Because we haven't got any."

Better then to call this prize, as many have, including the Nobel
committee, an aspirational award -- the committee expressing its own
audacity of hope. As the President himself said, "I know that
throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to
honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give
momentum to a set of causes."

According to an article by political scientist Ronald Krebs in an upcoming issue of Political Science Quarterly,
since 1971, the peace prize has been presented as just such an
aspirational incentive 27 times. So the President is not alone. The
head of the Nobel committee told reporters, "We do hope this can
contribute a little bit to what he is trying to do."

Consider the prize encouragement, a vote of support for vision and
inspiration, a recognition that after eight years of a unilateral,
destabilizing imposition of American exceptionalism on the world
there's an attitude adjustment working its way through our foreign
policy. Dignity is part of it. So is humility -- listening to other
nations instead of ordering them around with the bluster of a
swaggering county sheriff.

The potential is there. Whether Barack Obama can overcome or solve the
dilemmas he inherited -- or the crises created on his own watch by his
own hand -- will be proof of whether good intentions can become reality
or simply pave that infamous road to hell.

In 1961, another young president, John F. Kennedy, met with Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev at a summit conference in Vienna, Austria. It
was a time when Cold War tensions between the two countries were high,
just weeks after the failed, US-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of
Pigs. Kennedy pointed to one of the medals on Khrushchev's lapel and
asked what it was. The Lenin Peace Prize, said Khrushchev. Kennedy
replied, "I hope you keep it."

Now Obama has received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The months and years ahead will determine whether he deserves to keep it.