And if we again bomb Iran, and then Trump works out a new peace deal, that would be\u00a0ten<\/em>.\u00a0And maybe Trump could resolve for a second time the dispute in Rwanda.\u00a0That would be\u00a0eleven<\/em>, and we\u2019re just getting started!<\/p>\n With just a little bit of work, Trump could resolve dozens of wars by the end of next year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m wrong:\u00a0Attacking Venezuela doesn\u2019t put the Nobel Peace Prize out of reach after all.<\/p>\n Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0inhouse@abovethelaw.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Will Venezuela Cost Trump The Nobel Peace Prize?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n I was shocked that President Donald Trump launched a military attack on Venezuela to kidnap Nicolas Maduro. How could it possibly be worth it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Why give up a shot at the Nobel Peace Prize in exchange for only Venezuelan oil and a single narco-terrorist (or two, if you count the spouse)?<\/p>\n What\u2019s in it for Trump?<\/p>\n But then I thought about it.\u00a0Trump probably decided that the damn prize committee wouldn\u2019t award him the Nobel anyway.\u00a0Trump has repeatedly claimed that he\u2019s settled eight wars in the past few months, but the committee might ask a few questions about those wars.<\/p>\n First, are Trump\u2019s numbers gross or net?<\/p>\n Trump says that he\u2019s ended eight wars since he took office.\u00a0But, during the same time, Trump has ordered the military to bomb seven countries: Yemen (where we bombed the Houthis); Somalia (the Islamic State); Syria (the Islamic State); Nigeria (Islamic State-linked military camps); Iran (nuclear facilities); Venezuela (drug boats, loading facility, and then the most recent attack); and Iraq (Islamic State personnel).<\/p>\n That\u2019s quite a list for a guy who says he\u2019ll keep the United States out of foreign conflicts.<\/p>\n How are we supposed to count this list? Do we give Trump credit for having ended eight wars?\u00a0Doing his best to start seven new ones?\u00a0Or netting it all out to leave him +1?<\/p>\n But that\u2019s just the first question.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s question number two:\u00a0Has Trump actually ended any of the eight wars for which he\u2019s claimed credit?<\/p>\n Trump claims to have ended the war between Israel and Hamas.\u00a0It\u2019s true that the hostages have been released, and the two sides didn\u2019t kill each other for a few days.\u00a0But that\u2019s more a temporary ceasefire than a real peace agreement.\u00a0The Israelis still occupy a big chunk of the Gaza Strip; Hamas does not appear to be disarming; the two sides have started killing each other again (though now at a slower rate); and there\u2019s no sign of an interim governing structure.\u00a0Maybe it takes more than a news conference to resolve permanently a spat in which the competing sides have been killing each other for decades.<\/p>\n Trump also claims to have ended a war between Israel and Iran, but that wasn\u2019t an actual war.\u00a0That was more a brief exchange of missiles.\u00a0 And the two sides continue to threaten each other with possible future missile attacks (with Trump chiming in that he may join that fun).\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure this war ever started.\u00a0If it did, I\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s over.\u00a0No credit there.<\/p>\n Now we get to the lesser wars.\u00a0You may never have heard that these other situations were wars, but Trump claims to have resolved them.\u00a0I put these other wars in the same category as the Donald-Melania war, which started early last Tuesday and ended late Tuesday night, and the Donald-Gavin war, which just now appears to be breaking out.<\/p>\n Anyway, Egypt and Ethiopia have some kind pissing match over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.\u00a0There was never an actual shooting war there.\u00a0I\u2019m not sure Trump gets credit for ending a war that never started.<\/p>\n There was in fact shooting along the border between India and Kashmir.\u00a0Trump says that U.S. trade concessions helped to end that war.\u00a0India, however, denies that any trade-linked talks ever took place.\u00a0I think that if Trump ends wars, the warring parties have to give him credit.\u00a0Otherwise, no Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n Things are tense between Serbia and Kosovo, but NATO peacekeepers are on the ground and have prevented large-scale fighting.\u00a0Ooh, ooh:\u00a0If the Nobel gang gives the Peace Prize to NATO, one president\u2019s gonna be mighty pissed off.<\/p>\n Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have a conflict involving M-23, a Congolese Tutsi-led rebel group.\u00a0M-23 rejects the current peace deal, because it excluded them, and the parties have started killing each other again.\u00a0No peace, no credit.\u00a0Sorry, Donald.<\/p>\n There was also a spat between Armenia and Azerbaijan.\u00a0Trump brought the parties to the White House, but they haven\u2019t yet signed any peace deal, and the situation remains tense.\u00a0I don\u2019t think Trump should be allowed to jump the gun on putting down the guns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n There was a border clash between Thailand and Cambodia.\u00a0The U.S. applied pressure and there was a ceasefire, but then fighting resumed, and then there was another ceasefire, and there still isn\u2019t a definitive end to the conflict.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure that Trump has actually settled any wars.\u00a0Perhaps resolving wars requires more than putting people in a room for a few minutes and asking them to say that they\u2019re now friends.<\/p>\n Even if Trump has ended a war, he may well be instigating more than he\u2019s ending.\u00a0There\u2019s no Nobel Peace Prize for that.\u00a0I\u2019m pretty sure the awards committee insists on a net positive.<\/p>\n But now I understand why Trump went after Venezuela:\u00a0He thought he was out of the running for the Peace Prize, anyway, so he might as well start something new.<\/p>\n On reflection, however, the last situation \u2014 where Thailand and Cambodia declared a ceasefire, resumed fighting, and then declared another ceasefire \u2014 gave me a thought.\u00a0Trump solved that war once.\u00a0It started again, but now he can solve it yet a second time.\u00a0That would be a\u00a0ninth<\/em>\u00a0peace deal that he\u2019s worked out.<\/p>\n And if we again bomb Iran, and then Trump works out a new peace deal, that would be\u00a0ten<\/em>.\u00a0And maybe Trump could resolve for a second time the dispute in Rwanda.\u00a0That would be\u00a0eleven<\/em>, and we\u2019re just getting started!<\/p>\n With just a little bit of work, Trump could resolve dozens of wars by the end of next year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m wrong:\u00a0Attacking Venezuela doesn\u2019t put the Nobel Peace Prize out of reach after all.<\/p>\n Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was shocked that President Donald Trump launched a military attack on Venezuela to kidnap Nicolas Maduro. How could it possibly be worth it?\u00a0\u00a0 Why give up a shot at the Nobel Peace Prize in exchange for only Venezuelan oil and a single narco-terrorist (or two, if you count the spouse)? What\u2019s in it for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Nobel_Prize-Wjsrsa.webp?fit=500%2C492&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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