Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize has come far too early

That Barack Obama would one day collect the Nobel Peace Prize was as predictable as Morgan Freeman finally getting to play Nelson Mandela on the silver screen. But few could have foreseen it happening in this order.

President Obama's wondrous achievements, great personal charisma, and seemingly bullet-proof international status notwithstanding, the decision to award him the 2009 Nobel after only ten months in office is absurdly premature.

After all, it seems only reasonable that you give a man enough rope to hang himself before crowning him with Nobel laurels.

Take the Literature Prize. Authors might collect a couple of Bookers and assorted lesser gongs along the way; but for The Big One you have to be prolific, live long enough to change the face of global literature and not get caught being a former Nazi (though, on reflection, such revelations actually haven't prevented folks ascending to the Nobel pantheon).

Is Obama just being rewarded for being America’s first black president?

More particularly, though, shouldn't the President at least see out his time in office first? Yes, Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel while still resident on Pennsylvania Avenue - but he did help end WWI and set up the League of Nations.

Obama is not yet, as it were, in that league. He hasn't founded a bank for the poor or ended any major conflicts - and even Richard Nixon managed that. Sure, he says he doesn't want the West to be at war with Islam, and would like to see a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons. But who wouldn't?

And it's not as if 2009 wasn't already shaping up to be a pretty good year for the Obama CV. He's shifted a ton of books (which he may or may not have written), did that cool fly-swatting thing on CNN, and... oh, become the most powerful politician on the planet.

But forget the highs and not-so-highs of the last ten months. Nominations for this year's prize closed in February, only a fortnight after the President first showed up for work.

Given the apparent knee-jerk nature of the award, one can't help but feel Barack Obama is actually being rewarded, twice over, for being elected America's first black president - which being the case, mischief-makers might point out that, strictly speaking, given his ancestry, he is only entitled to half the award.

Talking of which, Nelson Mandela had to share his prize with FW De Klerk (a fair but ironically divisive decision); Al Gore with the UN Climate Change team. It is grimly poignant that while Obama isn't sharing his 'nuclear-free' future prize with the IAEA, Morgan Tsvangirai - who was one of the Nobel nominees this year - is still sharing his government with Robert Mugabe.

There is no refuting the fact that Obama has both heart and mind set on securing a more peaceful future not just for his country, but for the world. And there is every chance that some of his hopes may be fulfilled. But even the awarding committee says he has been given the prize in anticipation of what is yet to be achieved.

And yet there is still plenty of time for the Iraq withdrawal to go awry; time for serious scandal to leak out, so to speak, in the Oval Office or in the wider Democratic Party; time for the economy to tank on his watch (or, rather, revive and re-tank).

All things considered, Obama might start seeing the merits of a one-term presidency. The Nobel committee's decision is in the bag; but it's never too late for History to change its mind.