Obama Should Harness the Power of His Peace Prize

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In The Media

Obama Should Harness the Power of His Peace Prize

The recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize puts a great additional burden on President Obama. He must now live up to the expectations of the prize and harness the power of the award.

By Henri J. Barkey

Published on Oct 12, 2009

Source: The Hill

Some pundits and politicians have greeted President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award with derision; some even suggested he should have refused it. That would have been an almost childish act. The irony is that those who criticize him for accepting it would also have criticized him for turning it down. They would have accused him of grandstanding and of diminishing the prize. He was in a no-win situation.

This was not a prize he sought, much less wanted at this stage of his presidency precisely because it would engender such criticisms and increase expectations. He did the right thing; he accepted it with a great deal humility and modesty.

The fact remains that the Nobel Committee has put a great additional burden on his shoulders. As if he did not have enough problems to deal with, he has to live up to the expectations of the prize, which no matter what one says about the selections over the years, it is one of the most important institutions in the Western world.

The important issue for the President now is how to harness the power of the award without succumbing to its potentially destructive expectations aspect. Let us face it, once behind closed doors, a Nobel Prize does not add any negotiating power to its recipient. What it does do is create a moment of aura at the very moment the award is conferred. The speech he will deliver at Oslo is the magical moment when the prize will literally have its most influence.

Hence, in his speech he needs to outline two very specific initiatives. One which he has significant control over-such as a reduction in nuclear weapons and one of the important reasons he was awarded the prize-and one that is far more ambitious but which he intends to carry through. My recommendation would be the Arab-Israeli peace process because so much depends on it.

About the Author

Henri J. Barkey

Former Visiting Scholar, Middle East Program

Barkey served as a member of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff, working primarily on issues related to the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, and intelligence from 1998 to 2000.

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