Rhetorical Hypnosis?

The announcement of the Nobel Committee of President Obama’s name was created with stunned looks and jaws dropped. International reaction has been, to say the least, muted, to say the most, astounded. I had two words to my wife this morning: “For what!?”

Indeed the past U.S. Presidents who have won the prize, both sitting: T. Roosevelt for the Treaty of Portsmouth, 1906, and Woodrow Wilson for the Treaty of Versailles in 1920; and non sitting, Jimmy Carter for his long term peace efforts and the Israel/Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978. These were for tangible endings to terrible conflicts.

Now we have President Obama, and it is telling some of what was in the Nobel Committee’s announcement. This is a piece of the press release:

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

It is an expression of the hope engendered by Mr. Obama, and not the reality. I cannot help but be reminded of Wilson’s entry into Paris in January 1919 in which he was greeted with delirious delight by the war weary French and English. Once he got down to the hard task of winning the peace, he found that the men he was dealing with were men who were not swayed by Rhetoric, but by the political and security realities of near bankruptcy, and material devastation brought on by four years of World War.

Mr. Obama now finds himself in a similar situation, he has soared on the wings of rhetoric, raised the expectation that there has been a change in U.S. policy, and the World awaits to see, and perhaps cash in on either the achievement or the disappointment which will come in time. The peril of Mr. Obama’s position should be clear to anyone who wishes for a successful U.S. foreign policy. For the first time since 9/11, a U.S. President has been granted the precious commodity of moral authority. Mr. Obama can squander it like his predecessor, or he can be dazzled by it like Mr. Wilson, or he profit by it, as did Theodore Roosevelt.

What are required here are a tempered and pragmatic response, statesmanship and not vision. Win the peace by asserting U.S. interest. Do not squander the peace by being hypnotized by prestige. Mr. Obama, for once, be a pragmatist and treat this as an opportunity. An opportunity like this may never come again.

If you do not believe me . . . ask the Ghost of Woodrow Wilson, or call up Mr. Carter. For heaven’s sake, do not use the term “Axis” in your Nobel speech.