When it comes to Barack Obama, surprise is hard to come by anymore. Since he first forced millions of politically-dispirited Americans to regain some semblance of adoration for America at home and abroad, he has managed time and again to astound in his success.

The story of his life has been told to a sickening extent so far, yet nearly a year after his presidential victory, the result remains a touchstone in the hearts and minds of those who hold the delusional belief that he can accomplish what he has set out for himself.

The list runs too long at this point, but suffice to say that if he achieves one of his major policy objectives – health care, peace in the Middle East, negotiating away Iran or ending the conquest of Iraq – by the end of his presidency, he might as well be canonized. Somehow though, he has managed to instil within his worshippers devotion normally not seen by elected heads of state.

And even though he commands the utmost in political leaps of faith, even though nothing seems surprising anymore, the Nobel Peace Prize award bestowed upon Obama this past week defies reactions such as astonishment, shock or bombshell.

Now, the Nobel Academy has been historically prone to blunder in the past. Henry Kissinger, architect of mass murder in Vietnam and Cambodia, or Yasser Arafat, come to mind immediately.

However, these figures had some tangible source to which the Academy could attempt to justify their decision. They had been significant figures in world politics for substantial amounts of time, enough to have become involved in events and moments upon which they could be commended, at least in the Academy’s mind.

Obama, on the contrary, has not achieved anything thus far in the way of furthering world peace. Perhaps the reign of terror committed by the Bush Administration was so egregious to the cause that to simply suggest that it stop, as Obama has postulated it will, seems like peace.

But the facts do not bear this out.

In his most obvious affront, Obama has decided to focus American military power on the hapless international adventure in Afghanistan. Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper had enough sense to admit that the war is unwinnable and that Afghanistan will always face some sort of “insurgency.” Not so with Obama, the apparent peace advocate, who is currently mulling over sending at least 40,000 more troops to the war-ravaged country while vowing to circumvent state borders in the name of the hunt for Al-Qaeda.

Just these two facts should have made any self-respecting Nobel judge scoff at awarding Obama the prize.

Regrettably, in much the same way as Obama’s hope mantra has managed to dupe a large number of the world’s population, platitudes dealing with the thought of achieving a better world, combined with actions that undermine it, are powerful political tools. Indeed, so much so that Obama’s victory is being argued as more about what people hope he will do, rather than what he has done to this point.

This of course, is a ludicrous suspension of anything remotely close to how we should judge achievements in the political realm. Once we begin to bestow value upon rhetoric without justifiable actions to reinforce this support, the ability to hold leaders accountable is muddied.

And so it is with the latest of Obama’s achievements. He has only had to talk of peace to attain a prize, while at the same time perpetuating a sinister and useless war.

Andrew Tod is a politics student at the University of Winnipeg.

Published in Volume 64, Number 7 of The Uniter (October 15, 2009)