Man of Peace or Man of War?

President Obama said he was "deeply humbled" by his surprise Nobel Peace Prize, but that didn't stop him from meeting with officials to discuss escalating war efforts in Afghanistan.

Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Barack Obama, you’ve just won the Nobel Peace Prize. What are you going to do now?

I’m going to meet with my generals and national security team to talk about escalating the war in Afghanistan!

That’s not what Obama said, directly at least, in response to the surprise Nobel announcement. In brief remarks at the Rose Garden, Obama said he was “deeply humbled” and viewed it not as a recognition of his own accomplishments, “but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”

“I will accept this award as a call to action,” Obama said, actions to establish a “new era of engagement,” actions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, actions to reduce global warming, and actions to create “a new beginning” in which people of different religions live peacefully in a world of mutual interest and mutual respect.

But, even as he walks down this peaceful path, Obama gave a nod to the not-so-peaceful reality he faces as commander in chief of the United States.

“We have to confront the world as we know it today,” he acknowledged, a world where the U.S. is winding down a war in Iraq and in Afghanistan faces “a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and its allies.”

That was a nod to Obama’s most important event of the day: a meeting in the Situation Room, away from the Rose Garden’s bright sunshine, where the president was going to meet with his national security team and military leaders about the United States’ 8-year-old war in Afghanistan.

General David Petraeus, the author of the surge strategy in Iraq, was going to be there, while General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was scheduled to join by videoconference. McChrystal has urged the president to send 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

The Nobel Peace Prize was the last thing Obama needed as he makes probably one of the most consequential decision of his presidency. It will make the howls of protest even louder if he follows the advice of his generals and sends more young Americans to kill—and be killed—in a foreign land.

The Nobel committee, of course, wasn’t thinking of Afghanistan. It credited Obama for creating “a new climate in international politics” that emphasizes “a global response to global challenges.”

What will they think if the man of peace becomes a man of war?