Obama Nobel Peace Prize -- for What?

President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday and the announcement has touched off a raging public debate about whether Obama deserves the award. And it's not only President Obama's detractors who are puzzled by the award. Indeed, many of President Obama's most fervent supporters are asking, Why did Obama win the Nobel Prize?

It seems to me that by awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel committee has cheapened the credibility of the award and gone against the wishes of Alfred Nobel, the businessman and inventor who founded the Nobel Prizes. In his will, Alfred Nobel stated that the prize go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

President Obama has only been in office for nine months. To be sure, his aspirations - which include reaching out to the Muslim world and abolishing nuclear weapons - are commendable, but these initiatives have not yet been accomplished. To say that President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is premature is a staggering understatement.

The Nobel committee has done a great disservice to President Obama by awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. Not only is is an embarrassment to Obama, but it also puts pressure on the president to fastrack some of his most ambitious campaign promises - which include shutting down Guantanamo Bay and ending the war in Iraq. If Obama fails to make headway on these initiatives, his enemies will play up the absurdity of his Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course, this kind of criticism will become utterly irrelevant if President Obama is successful in creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Any economist worth his salt will tell you that consumer spending is the engine that drives the U.S. economy; thus, in order to sustain economic growth and effectively end the Great Recession, it is imperative that the administration helps to create scores of good jobs that will give Americans the security and spending power to help shore up the ailing economy.

If President Obama rescues the economy, his popularity will soar in the United States - whether he closes Guantanamo Bay and ends the war in Iraq or not.

Remember, it's the economy, stupid.

Source:

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, nobelprize.org