Prizes and good intentions
In 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria, the League of Nations (the forerunner to the UN) was debating the standardisation of level-crossings. Not surprisingly the League collapsed into irrelevance as war spread. One of the early exponents of a body like the League of Nations was the American President Woodrow Wilson. He had his fourteen points of peace, which included a League of Nations, to prevent another Great War.
For his work he got the Nobel Peace Prize. But the Treaty of Versailles which set up the League paved the way for World War II. History can be ruthless with good intentions.
President Obama has also got the peace prize for good intentions - but for ones that cannot be judged. It was an award for the ideals he wrapped into campaign speech-making. He was nominated a mere 12 days after his inauguration. It was also a prize for not being someone else - George W Bush. The White House, in many European eyes, no longer had a sheriff who acted alone, but a leader who offered partnership. The Peace Prize award was, if you like, a political endorsement from Europe.
When the White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, woke the President at 6.30 in the morning to tell him of the prize he may have had misgivings. He could not have wanted it. For a prize comes with judgements and assessments. And for him this is far too early. It enabled his critics back home to say he has achieved nothing, nada.
It also encouraged a rush to judgement. The president today is a different figure to last January. He has been shaped by the reality of power. As the old saying goes "you campaign in poetry and govern in prose".
The president is a Peace Prize winner who has just committed a further 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. He offered Iran dialogue but has been snubbed. There is scant progress in the Middle East. Guantanamo Bay remains open.
It would be wrong, however, to say he has achieved nothing. The mere fact of his election was an achievement. An African-American in the White House broke the shackles of history. He sold the audacity of hope and drew in large crowds, many of whom had been alienated from politics.
The award was for a vision; his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between people". So those who nominated him will have liked his speech in Cairo offering a bridge between the West and Islam. They will have welcomed his decision to go to the final sessions of the Copenhagen summit, when America's leadership will be in the spotlight. They may well agree with the singer Bono, that Obama deserves his prize for his commitment to end global poverty.
So what can the president say when he comes here to Oslo. He has to be humble. He has to explain why he accepted this award so early in his presidency. He may well say, again, that there is no alternative to nations working together to solve the world's problems and that, in this, America will be a partner.
But, as with Woodrow Wilson, events can undermine the best intentions and dreams.
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