I hope Nobel members feel pleased with themselves, the smug idiots

I hope the members of the Nobel committee feel pleased with themselves for giving this year's peace prize to Barack Obama.

I bet they do, the smug idiots. It is hard to imagine a more effective way to undermine him both at home and abroad. It smacks hugely of sentimentality and condescension.

Disdain for the award from the Middle East, Pakistan and other regions that have felt the sharp edge of American hard power – bombs and missiles included – since the president was inaugurated on 20 January will more than outweigh the warm, fuzzy feelings that the news will generate for a few minutes among those in the rich world who wish him well.

Nor will it do much for the president at home, where he is fighting on even more fronts than he is overseas and – so far – with an equally conspicuous lack of tangible success.

It is wrong to write off the Obama presidency after a mere nine months, as some are already doing. But it is also silly, very silly, to award him the Nobel peace prize when he hasn't delivered much peace, only eloquent, soaring rhetoric.

It's wonderful stuff, but the hard bit of politics is delivery. From Israel-Palestine and Iran to Afghanistan, China, Russia, world trade, climate change – pretty much everything – the presidency is very much a work in progress.

And that's without mentioning the recession and Obama's healthcare battle with the rampant US right who will loathe him even more for – as they will see it – toadying to the foreigners. His more sensitive supporters would be right to feel it is patronising.

What Obama needs – and explicitly asks for – from Europeans is not awards, but troops on the ground and willing to be shot at in Afghanistan. Plus help resettling the Guantánamo Bay detainees he wants to release, and effective cooperation on bread-and-butter issues, from trade to the Copenhagen climate change deal.

Naturally, all that's harder, so it doesn't happen. The Norwegians can usually be relied on to live quiet, sensible lives and not do much harm. Today they did harm.