by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n Giving Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, after a mere nine months in office and no foreign policy achievements whatsoever, confirms that the prize is a bit of political theater in which those Americans who put the world\u2019s interests ahead of their own country\u2019s will play the starring role.<\/p>\n Indeed, the European love-fest for our President clearly derives from a recognition that unlike the despised George Bush, who more often than not looked to America\u2019s interests and acted vigorously to defend them, Obama will defer to the whole world, eager more for applause and approval than for keeping America strong. That\u2019s why so far we haven\u2019t seen any of the foreign policy boons we were told would follow the rejection of the unilateralist cowboy Bush in favor of the apostle of \u201cengagement\u201d willing to talk no matter how thuggish or murderous the regime. Yet despite groveling in Cairo, shaking hands with Chavez, making nice with Cuba, basking in the adoration of Europeans, selling out Czechoslovakia and Poland to curry favor with Russia, and sending diplomatic\u00a0billets doux<\/em>\u00a0to the mullahs in Iran, Obama has nothing to show for his efforts.<\/p>\n In fact, as the\u00a0Weekly Standard<\/em>\u00a0put it, taking no for an answer is now Obama\u2019s \u201cpresidential trademark.\u201d Obama asks and asks, but always gets the same answer. The International Olympic Committee (no to games in Chicago), Israel (no to a settlement freeze), Mahmoud Abbas (no to talks with Israel), King Abdullah (no to Saudi friendly gesture to Israel), our NATO allies (no to more troops for Afghanistan) a government official in Scotland (no to stopping the release of the Lockerbie bomber), Fidel Castro (no to loosening his dictatorial control), Honduras (no to taking back its deposed president), Russia (no to anti-missile batteries in Eastern Europe and meaningful sanctions on Iran) \u2014 for all the love the world has showered on Obama, national self-interest still determines the behavior of nations, just as it did when George Bush was President.<\/p>\n But of course, these days the Nobel Prize isn\u2019t about achievement, but rather anti-American politics. Forgive me for repeating what I wrote when the fatuous Al Gore won the prize in 2007: \u201cAnd now has come the global imprimatur of Western self-loathing, Bush hatred, and anti-Americanism, the Orwellian named Nobel Peace Prize. Jimmy Carter, who hasn\u2019t met a dictator whose boots he won\u2019t lick, got his in 2002 during the run-up to the Iraq war, right after he scolded the President as a warmonger. Mohammed El Baradei \u2014 he of the impotent International Atomic Energy agency, another Bush-scolder whose \u2018diplomacy\u2019 has accomplished nothing other than giving the Iranian mullahs more time to get the bomb \u2014 got one too in 2005. And let\u2019s not forget the most shameless Nobel of all, the one given in 1994 to Yasser Arafat, the corrupt thug with Israeli, American, European, and Arab blood up to his elbows. How anyone could feel proud being in that company defies comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n Oppose America or chastise the West and you\u2019re in line for a Peace Prize. Remember Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemalan peasant whose autobiography detailing the horrors inflicted on Indians by the U.S.-backed military regime turned out to be a European leftist\u2019s fantasy? Of course she got her prize, in 1992. Or how about giving Mikhail Gorbachev a prize in 1990 while ignoring Ronald Reagan, the true architect of the Evil Empire\u2019s demise? Giving Gorbachev the prize is like rewarding someone for running out of a burning house instead of sticking around to redecorate.<\/p>\n But the Nobel Peace Prize commemorates more than anti-Americanism or leftist politics. For years, it has been the trophy bestowed on received wisdom and stale ideas. And the most pernicious of such ideas has been the idealistic internationalism that for over a century has fooled the West into thinking that international law, trans-national organizations, and diplomatic \u201cengagement\u201d could replace power politics, national self-interest, and the use of force to create order and deter aggression. In 1919, Woodrow Wilson won the prize for creating the League of Nations, and for the next three years, the Prize was awarded to people connected with the League. It took only four years, however, for the League to be exposed as what Churchill later would call a \u201ccockpit in the tower of Babel.\u201d In 1923, Mussolini bombed the Greek island of Corfu, and despite being blameless, Greece was made to pay Italy reparations as the price of Italian withdrawal. Even the Secretary General of the League knew it had been exposed as a toothless sham: \u201c[T]his challenge has brought into question the fundamental principles which lie at the root of the public law of the new world order established by the League.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1926, the Prize went to Aristide Briand, the French Prime Minister who the previous year signed the Locarno Treaty along with England, Italy, Belgium, and Germany. (England\u2019s Austen Chamberlain won in 1925 for signing Locarno). This treaty was celebrated as the end of the bad blood and mischief caused by the supposedly unjust and vengeful Versailles Treaty, and the welcoming of Germany back into the international community. It was wildly celebrated as the beginning of a new age of prosperity and peace. In reality, it facilitated Germany\u2019s rearmament and return to dominance, England\u2019s serial appeasement of those efforts, and France\u2019s withdrawal into the false comfort of the Maginot Line. It wasn\u2019t long before the emptiness of the treaty was clear to all, and the praise of it became known as \u201cLocarney-Blarney.\u201d<\/p>\n American Frank B. Kellogg, Secretary of State, won in 1929 for co-authoring, along with Aristide Briand, the Kellogg-Briand Pact the previous year. By the terms of this agreement, the contracting parties \u201ccondemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another,\u201d and \u201cagree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts . . . shall never be sought except by pacific means.\u201d It was signed by 49 nations, including the future Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan. Its hollowness was exposed a mere three years later when Japan invaded Manchuria \u2014 an act of brutal aggression also met with feeble bluster and empty threats on the part of the League of Nations.<\/p>\n But the anti-Americanism and idealistic internationalism the Nobel Prize rewards are two sides of the same coin. When America subordinates its interests to those of the \u201cworld community\u201d and organs such as the United Nations or the International Court of Justice, then we are liked and praised. Hence Obama\u2019s prize was given \u201cfor his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,\u201d as the Nobel committee put it, apparently unconcerned that those \u201cefforts\u201d have produced no results. But when we pursue our interests as we citizens determine them through our political process, then we are demonized, for the simple reason that the interests of states do not always harmonize. No amount of diplomatic chatter and negotiation will alter that reality, or the fact that a state as dominant as the U.S. now will have interests and obligations radically different from those of weaker states, in whose own interests it will be to chip away at that dominance.<\/p>\n Rather than preening over the Nobel Prize, then, and continuing to seek the approval of foreign politicians who have no qualms about pursuing their countries\u2019 interests, our president should follow the example of the Cynic philosopher Antisthenes: \u201cStates, said he, are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad. Once, when he was applauded by rascals, he remarked, \u2018I am horribly afraid I have done something wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Giving Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, after a mere nine months in office and no foreign policy achievements whatsoever, confirms that the prize is a bit of political theater in which those Americans who put the world\u2019s interests ahead of their own country\u2019s will play the starring role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,651],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-zI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":396,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-nobel-committee-and-its-orwellian-peace-prize\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":0},"title":"The Nobel Committee and Its Orwellian Peace Prize","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine Norway\u2019s Nobel Committee added yet another absurd pick to its long list of politicized and shameful Peace Prize awards. Giving the prize to the disintegrating European Union is not as despicable as giving it to the bloodstained terrorist Yasser Arafat, or as laughably naive as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/time-for-a-foreign-policy-paradigm-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":1},"title":"Time for a Foreign Policy Paradigm Shift","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The greatest danger in foreign policy is a reliance on worn out paradigms and unexamined assumptions. This received wisdom acts as a mental filter that ignores new developments and lets through only that information which fits the preordained narrative. For nearly forty years American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6306,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/epitaph-for-a-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":2},"title":"Epitaph for a Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine If you still doubt that Barack Obama has disastrously bungled our foreign policy, check out this\u00a0video. In it Egyptian singer Salma Elmasry brutally insults Obama for supporting the Muslim Brothers and Islamists in general, her vulgar insults laced with an image of our President\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5350,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/no-country-for-old-liberals\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":3},"title":"No Country for Old Liberals","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers According to liberals, they are tolerant, open-minded, sensitive to complexity and nuance, and wary of simplistic explanations. So why is a column by the liberal Michael Hirsh, in the liberal newsweekly\u00a0Newsweek, so intolerant, close-minded, simplistic and bigoted? Hirsh\u2019s piece sounds the alarm over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-libya-venture-and-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Libya Venture and Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The champion of shameless chutzpah has always been the guy who murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he\u2019s an orphan. But White House spokesman Jay Carney might be the new champ, given his response to the House\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7530,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/partisan-politics-bad-ideas-the-bergdahl-swap\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":5},"title":"Partisan Politics, Bad Ideas & the Bergdahl Swap","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine President Obama\u2019s exchange of 5 high-ranking Taliban murderers for a soldier who possibly was a deserter and collaborator encapsulates everything that is wrong with this administration\u2019s foreign policy. The serial failures of the past 5 years reflect a toxic brew of partisan politics\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2216,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions\/2216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}