Is Donald Trump really in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize?
The news that President Donald J Trump has been nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize has, understandably, caused something of a stir in peace and political circles around the world.
It is tempting – or must be if you are a not a fan of the 45th occupant of the Oval Office – to assume that he received the nod for observing (allegedly) that American soldiers who fought and died in World War II were “losers” and “suckers,” which would at least be in keeping with the Nobel Committee’s overriding belief that war is a bad thing, best avoided.
In fact, however, Trump’s name has been added to the list because of the role his administration played in the establishment last month of diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
“As it is expected that other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE,” the citation runs, “this agreement could be a game-changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.”
Hmm. I think we’ve heard that before, usually when US Presidents and Israeli prime ministers needs to shore up their reputations. At no stage since the foundation of the Jewish State has Israel been at war with the UAE, which sits 1,600 miles to the east and regards Palestinians as, at most, second-cousins-once-removed.
Trump was certainly pleased when the peace deal was announced and claimed full credit along with Benjamin Netanyahu – indicted last year on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud – and the President’s son-in-law, the billionaire property developer Jared Kushner, who serves as his senior adviser and Middle East peace envoy. Kushner did, without doubt, engage in the diplomatic shuffle that led to the latest rapprochement, but he was pushing at an open door. The part played by his father-in-law, beyond beaming his approval, is less clear.
Also mentioned in the Nobel citation was the President’s “key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.”
Again, hmm. Perhaps we should wait a little longer before making up our minds on either of these. Kashmir remains very much a flashpoint. Indian and Pakistani border guards clashed as recently as last month, leaving scores on both sides injured. In North Korea, meanwhile, Kim Jong Un – derided by Trump as “Little Rocket Man” before he later declared that they were “in love” – decided in June to demolish the Inter-Korean Liaison Office and gave the go-ahead for a new series of ballistic missile tests over the Sea of Japan.
But you can’t win them all and there is no doubt that the White House is delighted that Trump can now plausibly be posited as man of peace, fit to be numbered, it would seem, alongside Nelson Mandela. There cannot be many in the West Wing who actually expect their boss to walk off with the coveted medallion, but with just eight weeks to go before the November presidential election it is the best look he has enjoyed in what has been a wretched year.
It is a bit like being nominated for an Academy Award. You might not win, but you are still up there as a member of the élite.
Not, mind you, that the Nobel Peace Prize, a bit like the Oscars, is quite the accolade that it’s cracked up to be. Most of the 134 individual recipients of the award, established in 1901, would not be recognised today. Their achievements are largely forgotten, or as often as not, disputed.
How many could name last year’s winner? Who were the 2018 joint laureates? Which was the international organisation that walked off with the prize in 2017? The moment the winners step down from the podium in Stockholm after delivering their acceptance speech, about the only long-term benefit they enjoy (apart from the nearly one million dollars in prize money) is that their after-dinner speaker rates shoot up and they can probably expect to secure a better table in restaurants, at least in their home town.
Down the years there have been a number of worthy winners: Mandela, of course, Desmond Tutu, John Hume, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa. Willy Brandt, Martin Luther King, all the way back, via the oubliette of history, to Jean Henry Dunant, who not only founded the International Red Cross but was the driving force behind the Geneva Convention.
But let us not forget Yasser Arafat, Aung San Suu Kyi, Menachem Begin and Henry Kissinger: peacemakers all. Several US Presidents have been honoured: Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Obama’s inclusion in the list was, to say the least, premature. He had barely finished adjusting the seat at his desk in the Oval Office when the phone rang. If he was given the prize for anything in particular, beyond his couple of bestselling books and his campaign rhetoric, it was for being the first black President.
Yes, but Donald Trump?
Here, it is necessary to examine the credentials of the man who came up with Trump’s nomination. On his Wikipedia page, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a notably right-wing Norwegian MP, identifies as a classic liberal, who advocates limited government intervention in the economy, reduced public spending and large scale tax reduction. An attention-seeker, he has said that reducing immigration is the single most important political issue facing Norwegian society.
Remind you of anyone?
So the real question is, who, part from the editors of tonight’s evening news bulletins, is likely to listen to Tybring-Gjedde? Not, I would guess, the Great & Good of Norway’s Nobel Committee, who are due to announce the name of this year’s winner on October 9. But I could be wrong. Maybe Donald Trump is about to enter the Pantheon. If so, expect most of the presenters of Fox News to take their seats next to Melania, Ivanka, Jared, Don Junior, Eric, Tiffany and 14-year-old Barron in Oslo’s City Hall on December 12. It should be quite a bash.