Events spiralled out of Chamberlain's control so fast that the Nobel committee in Oslo were never able to offer him their peace prize It is also perhaps worth exculpating Alfred Nobel, for the farce his peace prize has become. The man took various precautions in his will to make sure it would not be cheaply politicized, and specifically that it would never be used as a means to influence current events. It was to be a retrospective award, for specific accomplishments universally acknowledged, and thus the opposite of a partisan statement. There is broad speculation, among the sort of people I hang out with, that it was offered to Obama on the understanding that he would "do a Le Duc Tho," and decline it The left-wing, pacifist committee wanted to saddle the new U.S. president with their little "hope diamond," in case he got any ideas about killing more jihadis in Afghanistan. Or hesitated to do to Israel what Neville Chamberlain did to Czechoslovakia.
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