Obama Doesn't Deserve Peace Prize

The Nobel Prize Committee has done something extraordinary. It has awarded the world’s most prestigious prize for preventing and savings lives, for avoiding or ending conflict, for making the world a better and safer place, to a man who has...made some terrific speeches. It is the ultimate triumph of style over substance, of perception over reality.

But perhaps fitting nonetheless. The Nobel Peace prize is in itself the ultimate irony. Alfred Nobel was the man who invented dynamite – a destroyer of lives -- yet his name bears the honor bestowed on those who would save lives.

One of the first to hail President Obama’s choice for “ nuclear disarmament” was Mohammed El Baradei, head of the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). El Baradei himself received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his efforts “to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes.” El Baradei, an Egyptian, insists that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, and refuses to release IAEA reports declaring otherwise.

President Obama may well bring about nuclear disarmament, universal world peace and a permanent cessation of war. At this point, however, he has only made a handful of speeches about them. He has done nothing of substance -- he has not halted one nuclear enrichment plant, stopped one missile program, converted one terrorist , signed one treaty or even softened one bellicose speech by an adversary.

In a world where there are real nuclear weapons and real enemies, the notion that the perception of peace matters more than its reality is not just absurd, it's dangerous.

Ronald Reagan brought down the Iron Curtain, freed millions from tyranny, ended the Cold War, defeated the Soviet Union, ELIMINATED tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and he didn't even get an honorable mention from the Nobel Committee. Obama makes (by my count) 7 great speeches and he gets a Nobel Peace Prize. Go figure.

Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. She is frequent contributor to the FOX Forum and Foxnews.com's "Strategy Room." She also appears weekly in the Foxnews.com video blog "DefCon3."