Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

The committee in Oslo has spoken. Both the critics and the supporters have said their piece. And now that the initial shock and ensuing media frenzy following last Friday’s announcement by the Nobel committee have both dwindled, the newly minted Nobel laureate has to get back to work.

Indeed, with a litany of foreign policy problems including two long wars and the threat of a nuclear-capable Iran, work is not something Mr. Obama is lacking.

It was certainly a surprise that the Norwegian panel would award such an esteemed honor to a first-term, wartime president. Obama himself admitted that he was “surprised and deeply humbled” by their decision. The panel explained their recognition of the president stemmed from his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” and for creating a “new climate in international politics.”

Obama should certainly continue to practice the diplomacy and multilateralism he has demonstrated thus far in his presidency. However, he should not let the decision of five Norwegians shape his choices about strategy in Afghanistan, among other issues. In short, Obama should act primarily as commander in chief and not as Nobel laureate.

As October marks the eight-year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, Obama and his national security, foreign policy and military advisers are in the midst of a strategic review with emphasis on the role of neighboring Pakistan and the potential for an increased counterterrorism strategy instead of more troops.

When it comes to Afghanistan, Obama’s options are, through no fault of his own, grim. The U.S. Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, recently requested an additional 40,000 troops be deployed to the country. Whether or not Obama fulfills this request, there is simply no easy way out. If he does choose to go through with a policy of escalation in Afghanistan, it may seem to contradict the peacemaking efforts he has just been honored for. However, Obama should make this difficult decision independent of his superimposed pacifist persona.

Critics of the war, and no doubt the committee in Oslo, may have hoped that the award would encourage Obama to end the war promptly and bring supposed peace to Afghanistan. However, it is not clear that it is in anyone’s best interest to do so. The path to a more lasting and sustained peace in Afghanistan will not likely result from a sudden and reckless withdrawal from the unstable nation.

Instead, Obama should strive for long term stablility that may or may not come as a result of an increased military presence in Afghanistan. A comprehensive and deliberative decision-making process, such as the one Obama is currently engaging in with his advisers, will hopefully result in a long-term strategy — something that has been lacking in this war all along.

After eight long years of occupying a nation whose government and military are still far from stable and secure, it seems that more importance should be placed on the state we leave Afghanistan in, rather than when we leave it. If Obama focuses on this, perhaps his Nobel prize will one day be an award of tangible accomplishment rather than one of aspiration.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

President Barack Obama is a very busy man. That must be the reason he has yet to return any of my calls, e-mails, love letters or pleas for an interview.

“The weight of the world is on your shoulders” has, by now, become a clichéd proverb — but one that accurately encompasses Obama’s smorgasbord of duties. And as the obesity epidemic continues to rise, the planet he’s holding up is only getting heavier.

So it’s only fitting that Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win on Oct. 9 would manage to become more of a burden than an honor. He hasn’t done anything wrong — which, after the last eight years, is prize-worthy in and of itself — but he has yet to really do anything at all.

Recently, our collective lack of Obama faith has been apparent. The youth questions his promises, the Democrats refuse to work with him and the conservatives balk at his every move (though it’s markedly less cool to hate something the Republicans already hate — it’s like if your dad started listening to rap music).

But this isn’t about Obama; for once, the issue surpasses him. The problem is the prize itself, one that awards notable persons yearly as opposed to preserving the essence of the award by granting it to those exceptional few when we’re lucky enough to find them.

The Nobel Committee made some mistakes in the past (Yasser Arafat is rather questionable in retrospect), and skipped over some deserving candidates (the inventor of the “take a penny, leave a penny” system is, without a doubt, the Susan Lucci of Nobel laureates), but never has the Nobel Committee been tainted by the ever-present allure of celebrity.

Because that is what Obama represents in the context of such an award. My faith in him and his administration remains constant, and I do still believe that he will commit to his promises and enact the changes we so desperately need and he so gallantly preached.

But the Nobel Prize awards humanitarian efforts, culturally significant efforts, or, if we want to make it simpler, efforts that have actually happened. Awarding Obama before he has had the chance to move beyond rhetoric is not only demeaning to the award itself, but devaluing an honor that would be substantially more gratifying had it been granted once Obama actually completed his efforts. Moreover, it simply enhances the gap between our Obama obsession and the list of actual changes he’s made — a fact that his naysayers highlight any chance they get.

And those changes are, as of now, few and far between. Obama himself seems aware of it, accepting the award with equal parts humility and almost cognizant humiliation. He has called this win “a call to action” — but isn’t that what the election was for?

It’s hard to know, then, what a peace prize means in the context of a time when we, as a country, practice rendition and other questionable torture techniques, and are involved in two wars — one that, as of this month, became America’s longest. It’s a hard thing to justify, especially when given on the same week that we bomb the moon.

Many argue that the Nobel Committee’s hope was to entice the political examination of our war with Afghanistan. True, it places Obama to a higher standard as peacemaker, but the prize feels more like a political checkmate than the acknowledgement of a job well-done.

We balked at former President Bush’s preemptive war, but what this last week has shown us is that the public is clearly more terrified of preemptive praise. We balk at his accolades, questioning their merit because they feel like too much in light of too little, especially with the positive humanitarian efforts that are occurring daily without the benefit of name recognition.

I believe that by the time Obama’s first term is over he will have spread substantial change through not just our country, but every territory that has felt either the effects of U.S. involvement, or just the shattering of the U.S. image.

We are a nation that has basked in the myth of the frontier, preaching the necessitation of violence as the lifeblood of our country, dating back to its origins. We are in the process of reevaluating those priorities.

For our leader to be given an award promoting peace — in a time where the very notion of that term is in question — calls for a better understanding of what this prize represents.

Reassessment is needed on all fronts.