TEHRAN – In a move that pleased Washington’s propaganda machine, Norway’s Nobel committee selected Venezuela’s rival Maria Colina Machado over the president who spent months seeking a medal.
Machado’s selection and her immediate public dedication of the award to Donald Trump tells us exactly what happened. The committee rewarded opponents of the anti-U.S. government’s Western alliance while ignoring the president’s spectacle of self-congratulation.
This scene is almost comical. Modern presidents lobbied like entitled claimants, highlighting every ceasefire they could claim and posting highlight reels where the dirty work of diplomacy was already being done by others.
The White House’s tantrum (accusing the committee of prioritizing “politics over peace”) is more akin to wounded vanity than a moral argument.
The deeper motivation is clear. President Trump’s thirst for awards is a mixture of ego and a very public envy of Barack Obama, who famously embarrassed his aides by winning the Nobel Prize early on (Ben Rhodes’ memoir chronicles the White House embarrassment). The chase was childish and clearly transactional.
Machado’s victory is not an apolitical honor. It’s a geopolitical signal.
Her politics align with the trend of regime change in the United States, and her elevation lends a moral gloss to the rebels, who conveniently curry favor with Washington, even as behind-the-scenes diplomacy with Caracas seeks commercial concessions and strategic resource deals.
The NYT’s report on Friday showed how talks between the US envoy and Venezuelan officials involved wide-ranging offers over access to oil and mines, highlighting the important stakes behind the “democracy” rhetoric.
Two painful truths follow. First, the Nobel Prize itself is not an oracle that has nothing to do with politics. This award was established by Alfred Nobel. He was an explosives industrialist whose fortune still influences the field of prize optics. And it has long been susceptible to geopolitical levers.
This history helps explain why laureates like Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama have caused outrage. This award can sanctify great powers even when they are at war.
Second, neither Machado nor Trump deserves moral honors, even if you perhaps give the committee some legitimacy.
Machado has been accused of calling on war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to intervene in Venezuela, embracing aggressive measures against Maduro, and supporting a touted policy of sanctions and privatization that critics say has devastated ordinary Venezuelans (academics estimate that tens of thousands of people have died as a result of the sanctions).
President Trump’s “peace” record is similarly poor. U.S. military support for Israel’s war crimes, large-scale arms transfers, and recent U.S. airstrikes in the 12-day war against Iran that killed more than 1,060 Iranians—actions that Mr. Trump has publicly boasted about, hardly seem like the work of a true peacemaker.
The Nobel committee didn’t just reject the man, it revealed a farce.
Whether you hate Trump or admire Machado, the real scandal is structural. The bounty generated by the Weapons King has been repeatedly used for the benefit of the empire.
If we want peace, we must stop treating symbolic medals as a substitute for responsibility. The world needs justice and true diplomacy. This is not an award that puts violence away with a ribbon.