Opinion What were they thinking?

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said in its announcement. With American forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan,President Obama’s name was hardly on anyone’s mind even as speculation centred on human rights activists in China and Afghanistan and political figures in Africa.

The prize was announced as the Obama administration wrestles with global crises from the Middle East to Iran to North Korea,and the White House is considering whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The announcement does little to further the myriad challenges he is facing at home and abroad; Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty and ambitious agenda.

At home,his popularity ratings have been falling,with Americans unhappy about rising umemployment; his flagship effort at revamping the healthcare system is becoming unpopular with each passing day.

Globally,the woes have kept on piling up,too. On Afghanistan there is no clarity; he is vacillating in accepting the advice of his military commanders to put more American troops on the ground even as the Democratic base wants him to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Nearly 800 American lives have been lost since the 2001 invasion began. While pulling out is not an option,putting more Americans at risk is also becoming politically difficult. Next door,in Pakistan,Obama is looking for a way to motivate the government to try harder. He has chosen the well-trodden path of giving more US money. But news has also come in that Pakistan’s military are questioning the proposed $1.5 billion a year for five years as potentially meddlesome. The Pakistani public wants its country to have nothing to do with the US.

So is finding a way to deter Iran from taking the final steps to production of nuclear weapons — a goal Iran denies but most of the world does not doubt it is pursuing. If Iran does not negotiate a settlement,and the prospects appear dim right now,its power to intimidate would be expanded,and might even be used.

Lurking in the background,meanwhile,is the unresolved Middle East conflict. Obama seems persuaded that Israel should give ground to the Palestinians to build a state next door,risky as that proposition might be. Militants,taking a break right now,might seize new opportunities to strike their despised target. The fighting would be costly and hard to contain.

Meanwhile at the grand strategic level,America’s Asian allies are complaining that the Obama administration is too beholden to China,even refusing to meet the Dalai Lama,now a fellow Nobel Laureate. There is worry that Obama is ceding the strategic space in Asia-Pacific to China without articulating any meaningful response to the emerging changes in regional balance of power. And Obama’s decision to shelve a plan for installing an anti-ballistic missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland may have mollified Russia but it has created panic in the eastern European states and raised questions about credibility of America as the guarantor of their security.

Given this scenario,it is not a surprise that many are questioning the motives behind awarding the Nobel prize to Obama so early in his tenure as president. The last US president to get this award,Jimmy Carter,is widely viewed by Americans as one of their most ineffective presidents.

Obama will have to show greater resolve and tenacity if he is not to go down Carter’s route. He will have to show that there is more to him than just lofty rhetoric and achieve some of the goals that he has outlined in his various speeches. And this Nobel prize will not be of much help when it will come to resolving some of the most pressing global problems.

The writer teaches at King’s College,London express@expressindia.com