Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
So what do you think of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize? I?m nonplussed ? I admire his efforts toward Middle East peace, but the prize still seems very premature. What has he done?

Obama?s work on the Middle East, mostly through Senator Mitchell?s efforts, are sensible but haven?t produced any results yet. They certainly don?t match the intensive efforts that Bill Clinton made with his Middle East peace negotiations in the fall of 2000. Likewise, Obama?s efforts on nuclear non-proliferation are important, but they are purely an aspiration. All the hard work is yet to come ? and trying to renegotiate the NPT will be very hard indeed.

In other areas, Obama has done little. He?s been largely absent on Sudan, Congo, Burma and global poverty and health issues, and doesn?t even have a USAID administrator. I think he has the right instincts on these issues and expect him to get engaged, but shouldn?t the Nobel Peace Prize have a higher bar than high expectations? Especially when there are so many people who have worked for years and years on the front lines, often in dangerous situations, to make a difference to the most voiceless people of the world? I think of Dr. Denis Mukwege at the Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo, or Jo and Lyn Lusi at the Heal Africa Hospital also in eastern Congo, or Greg Mortenson traipsing all over Pakistan and Afghanistan to build schools, or Dr. Catherine Hamlin working for half a century to fight obstetric fistula and maternal mortality in Ethiopia, or so many others. In the light of that competition, it seems to me that it might have made sense to wait and give Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in his eighth year in office, after he has actually made peace somewhere.

In any case, I do hope that the Prize gives Obama a bit more political capital in his Middle East peace efforts, and a bit more confidence and willingness to bang heads there when necessary.