Tim Wall

Barack Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize has been greeted around the world with a mix of praise, incredulity and scepticism.

It is true that the US president, just nine months into his first term, has made giant strides compared to his warmongering predecessor, George W. Bush.

As far as Russia is concerned, the difference is as clear as night and day. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, planned a missile shield that threatened Moscow and allowed nuclear threats from Iran, North Korea and other states to proliferate.

Obama has committed to withdrawing most US troops from Iraq, drawn up far less threatening missile plans, and engaged in dialogue with Russia, Iran and North Korea about reducing nuclear weapons capacity.

As recognition of this, President Dmitry Medvedev was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Obama.

But there are two big objections to the award. One, Obama is not even close to achieving any of these worthy objectives. And two, he is dragging the US and NATO even deeper into the quagmire that is Afghanistan. Indeed, the conflict seems unwinnable in the same way that Vietnam was a generation ago. And incredibly, this happens exactly when Obama is deciding whether to send an extra 40,000 US troops to Afghanistan - scarcely the act of a peacemaker.

This prize brings to mind the one given to Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. After hearing the news, Kissinger went back into a war council meeting, where he and White House officials were deciding how to bomb the Vietnamese people into submission.

When Obama goes to Oslo to receive the award in December, what will US troops be doing in Afghanistan? Observing a temporary "Nobel" ceasefire so as not to embarrass him?

Rather than an "elitist Nobel", what's needed is a "people's Nobel" that honours real peacemakers.

In Russia, a worthy candidate would be Natalya Estemirova, the human rights activist who spent a decade standing up for the victims of violence in Chechnya. Sadly, it would be a posthumous award, of course.

In the US, another worthy winner would be "Peace Mom" campaigner Cindy Sheehan, whose son died fighting Bush's war in Iraq. She was arrested most recently last week on a protest outside the White House, calling for Obama to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sadly, the Nobel laureate turned down an invitation to discuss her plan for peace.