American politics today is a blood sport with polarizations unseen since the Civil War era. One thing unifies American politicians, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Donald Trump: ego.

Every congressperson looks in a mirror and sees a senator, and every senator sees in his reflection a president. When politicians reach such echelons of power, they seek new credentials for which to strive. For many, this is a Nobel Peace Prize.

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It is a nonsense credential. While other Nobel Prizes are based on lifetime achievement in science or literature, the Nobel Peace Prize is often given solely on aspiration. The Norwegians choose someone who fits their liberal worldview or through whom they can symbolically virtue-signal.

Consider Thorbjørn Jagland, who in 2011 headed the five-member Norwegian committee that selected Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni activist, as the recipient. He explained to the press that he sought both a woman and a Muslim Brotherhood activist. He wanted to counter the perception in the West that the group “was a threat to democracy.” 

“I don’t believe that,” Jagland said. “There are many signals that that kind of movement can be an important part of the solution.” It was the ultimate diversity, equity, and inclusion hire. Karman herself subsequently used the Nobel’s imprimatur to normalize terrorism. She even remained silent when Muslim extremists shot then-14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, herself a future Nobel laureate, for demanding female education.

Many American politicians have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Few have stood the test of time.

President Woodrow Wilson won the prize in 1919 for creating the League of Nations, even though the Senate rejected membership. Senators understood the League was idealistic, ineffective, and an assault on sovereignty. Wilson’s agenda, however, enabled Europeans to play him like a fiddle in ways that often contradicted American interests.

A decade later, it was U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg’s turn. He took the prize for the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war. Adolf Hitler’s rampage through Europe was on the horizon, but Kellogg’s work gave sustenance to those who argued robust military deterrence was no longer necessary.

In 2002, President Jimmy Carter won the prize for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights.” In effect, the Nobel committee sought to launder Carter’s legacy of doing the opposite. Any tally sheet shows that Carter’s sympathy for the leftward and violent fringe cost more lives than it saved. Just ask the Zimbabweans who suffered under Carter’s friend Robert Mugabe, the North Koreans whose oppression Carter normalized, or the Israelis victimized by the Palestinian terrorism Carter justified.

Former Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 prize for his environmental polemics. The fact that the megamansion where he keeps the prize is not underwater is proof of the committee’s error. The committee based its 2009 award to former President Barack Obama almost entirely on his rhetoric. Obama’s naivete, especially toward Iran, did more to advance conflict than resolve it. Not only did he paper over Iran’s warhead design work, but he actually legalized its missile work.

Many other American politicians — former Secretary of State John Kerry, former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and former President Joe Biden — had Nobel Prize ambitions, although perhaps not as openly as President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly written and spoken about how he deserves the prize. 

After a meeting with Pakistani Field Marshall Asim Munir earlier this month, Pakistan nominated Trump for the prize. Islamabad understood that, short of gifting Trump an airplane, this was the best way into the president’s heart.

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For too many, ambitions to become a Nobel Laureate color decisions. Trump’s meeting with Munir, a man personally responsible for terrorism sponsorship, is just the latest instance. Almost every leader who seeks a Nobel ends up letting ambition cloud judgment and undermining American security.

Perhaps for the sake of U.S. national security, it is time to demand that all aspirants to office publicly declare they will neither seek nor accept a Nobel Prize. Presidents should serve the American people, not assuage five random Norwegian liberals.

Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.