The real reason Trump is unlikely to win the Nobel peace prize

The real reason Trump is unlikely to win the Nobel peace prize

Why Trump’s Nobel ambitions clash with the committee’s political outlook, and why Navi Pillay may help restore the award’s credibility
The Nobel Peace Prize has never been a straightforward affair. For a start, it isn’t awarded by the same institutions responsible for the other Nobel Prizes, but by a committee of five people appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and these five individuals decide who has done the most for world peace, although their understanding of that concept has long been influenced by political considerations.
Controversial decisions are hardly a recent development. Take Cordell Hull, the former US secretary of state, who received the prize in 1945 for his contribution to establishing the United Nations.
Hull was an accomplished diplomat, but why him? The prize could just as easily have gone to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who headed Moscow’s delegation at the San Francisco conference, or Andrey Gromyko, who subsequently led it, given the Soviet delegation played an important role in shaping the organization, including provisions intended to prevent another world war.
Yet Hull received the honor because, by then, Washington was already consolidating its influence over Western Europe, and American political preferences were increasingly reflected in international institutions.
Hull himself was hardly beyond controversy and before the war, his attitude towards Nazi Germany wasn’t always what modern admirers might expect. Indeed, even Adolf Hitler was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, although that nomination was a protest rather than a serious endorsement.
After 1945, the award increasingly reflected Western political priorities as American and British figures became more prominent, while recipients from countries traditionally associated with the prize, including Norway and Switzerland, became less so.
Among those honored elsewhere were anti-apartheid campaigners and political figures whose contributions to peace were considerably more debatable.
Consider Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both became international symbols of political transformation, but the consequences of those transformations weren’t universally peaceful as Gorbachev’s weakness contributed to the Soviet collapse, followed by conflicts across the Caucasus and other upheavals. The withdrawal of Soviet support also helped bring about the eventual collapse of Afghanistan’s secular government.
These developments were celebrated in the West as victories for freedom, even though their human consequences were rather more complicated.
Perhaps the most extraordinary decision of the modern era, however, was the award to Barack Obama in 2009.
Obama had been president for barely nine months and he had scarcely begun implementing his foreign policy, let alone demonstrated its lasting contribution to peace, so even he appeared surprised.
American anti-war activist Brian Becker offered a memorable explanation, describing it as the prize Obama received for not being George Bush.
Read more There was also Al Gore, who shared the 2007 award for his work drawing attention to climate change, but at least Gore received only half the prize, whereas Obama was given the entire honor, apparently on the strength of expectations.
A closer examination of the laureates suggests another interesting pattern:  the influence of political ideas associated with America’s Democratic Party.
Four US presidents who received the prize were Democrats, as was Gore, while anti-apartheid campaigners and other human rights activists have also featured prominently. These causes have generally enjoyed greater sympathy among American liberals than among the industrial and conservative interests traditionally associated with the Republicans.
This helps explain Donald Trump’s determination to become the first Republican president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump has approached the matter with chara