Go Slow, Oslo!

The Obama Peace Prize is nice, but it could turn out that the Nobel Committee was a little premature with all their adoration.

The Nobel Committee livened up an otherwise dull Friday morning with their announcement that President Barack Obama will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Once again tipping their hat to African Americans, after MLK and Ralph Bunche, Obama is the third American black man to win the Nobel Prize—the fourth, if you count Jimmy Carter. It’s a clear endorsement for Obama’s “extend a hand/unclench your fist” offer over Bush’s “they hate us for our freedom” sloganeering.

But it’s possible that the folks in Oslo, enthusiastically climbing aboard the “Hussein” Train, may have prematurely moved to cosign Obama’s broad diplomatic push—one that has made impressive inroads, but hasn’t solved the world’s biggest problems just yet.

Memo to the committee: Slow your roll.

Isn’t that his job?

If you’re living in a refugee camp in Darfur, you might be thinking: “Uh, a little help over here?”

Champagne is being popped, medals are being passed out, and folks are still hurting. There’s no doubt that Obama is doing everything he can, but it’s a sad commentary on his predecessors and contemporaries that he’s winning an award for doing what a head of state is supposed to do.

It’s like the old Chris Rock routine about people who brag, “I take care of my kids” or “I’ve never been to jail”—you’re supposed to take care of you kids. Presidents are supposed to make peace.

Barack who?

If you’re a past Nobel winner who’s been beaten, tortured or grown old in prison like Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu or Aung San Suu Kyi, you might be shaking your head like, “For real?”

On one hand, it’s sort of a no-brainer, like the International Olympic Committee awarding the 2016 games to Rio—they couldn’t pass on the first South American host nation, and the Nobel folks were hard-pressed to find a name-brand candidate who did more in 2009 to try to advance the cause of peace on Earth.

On the other hand, the Nobel Prize is kind of a secular sainthood—recognition for those who’ve put in work on behalf of their fellow man. For MLK, it was recognition of a lifetime spent promoting nonviolent resistance to injustice. For would-be President Al Gore, it was a consolation prize.

President Obama might save the world, and he might leave behind the same two wars that he inherited. This is one time when the committee could have waited a little longer to see how things play out. If there’s a sovereign Palestinian state living in harmony with Israel a couple of years from now, they’ll look like geniuses. If Obama winds up green-lighting an air strike on Iran’s nuclear reactors, in hindsight it’ll seem like the Nobel folks shot their wad a tad too soon.

Uh, thanks?

If you’re Obama, you’re looking at the Nobel committee like, “Do I get a three-speed bike and a tie-dyed shirt, too?

Considering that the president’s critics are doing everything they can to make him out to look like a hand-wringing milquetoast when it comes to matters of national security, the last thing that Obama needs is to have his Scandinavian friends give him the honorary hippie tag.

To the American right, the Nobel Committee might as well have put a hammer and sickle in Obama’s hands and wrapped a turban around his head. Of Obama’s Nobel Prize, de facto Republican Party leader Rush Limbaugh said: “They love a weakened, neutered U.S.”

No surprise there—as long as Obama’s president, the right appears content to be the “America Last” crowd. But it’s not just conservatives who could wind up dismayed by Obama’s accolades.

The Nobel citation reads, in part:

“Obama has, as a 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.”

All true. But while the prestigious award is unquestionably an honor, Europeans might be setting themselves up for a “Build Me Up, Buttercup” moment with this one. Obama may be the president they most admire, but he’s still an American, America is still the superpower, and Obama may yet break their hearts. Europeans get to talk about peace. Americans have to make it happen.

As Obama himself noted, “I am a commander in chief of a country that’s responsible for ending a war and working in another theatre to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies.”

It’s safe to say Obama would gladly trade the Nobel Prize for commitments from Denmark, Sweden and Norway to send guns and money to Afghanistan. We don’t know yet if Obama will sign off on sending 40,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, but we do know he isn’t pulling troops out anytime soon.

He knows he can’t walk into a conference room with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad and throw his Nobel medal on the table like, “What’s up, Mahmoud?” By the time Obama’s presidency ends, his medal will be gathering dust on the Oval Office mantle.

So to keep things classy, he’ll downplay the award, as he should. But he also knows that he’ll be out of a job in three or seven years, and he’ll be a family man with bills and two kids in college. There’s a $1.4 million check that comes with the prize—maybe he'll donate it to the Retired Black Presidents Association.

David Swerdlick is a regular contributor to The Root. Follow him on Twitter.