Will the US leader will opt for military intervention over cool diplomacy after being snubbed for the prestigious Norwegian award?

With global hotspots still simmering around the planet, it remains to be seen whether the US leader will opt for military intervention over cool diplomacy after being snubbed for the prestigious Norwegian award.

The global elite, who have never been big fans of the Orange Man, are now waiting for the blowback after denying POTUS the much-coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, the Nobel Committee gave its top award to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for her efforts to upend Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the staunch Socialist who has held onto power since 2013.

No sooner was Machado announced the winner, MAGA proponents were banging away at their battle stations, chastising the decision. And it seems they had a point. After all, the Nobel Peace Prize, established in 1895 as a legacy to the philanthropist Alfred Nobel, is supposed to award "the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses." That may be giving the little-known Machado much more credit than she deserves. And as Trump will never let us forget, he is at least partially responsible for bringing an end to six or seven wars, two of which involved intractable, decades-old showdowns in the Middle East. Say what you will about the US leader, those were no small accomplishments.

Yet Trump's detractors just sneer and downplay all of his endeavors. For example, in the Twelve-Day War between Israel and Iran, they remind that Washington was itself a participant, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites, while the wobbly ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came too late for due consideration. Meanwhile, fratricidal hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, a showdown that Trump boasted he would end in "twenty-four hours," continue to drag on. As for the other cessations of hostilities that Trump played a part, they are mostly too obscure to register.

In other words, it appears that Oslo is playing political games with its prestigious award, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Who could forget back in 2009 when US President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize simply for not being George W. Bush? During his acceptance speech in Oslo on December 10, 2009, America's first Black president expressed his own bewilderment with winning the prize when he said, "perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars." But then again, Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite and thus indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people worldwide so go figure.

In any case, Norway is bracing itself for a hurricane known as 'Trump's wrath.'

"We're not a million miles away from the headline: Donald Trump declares war on Norway for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize," one commentator quipped on X, the social media site.

The snub by the five-member Nobel Committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian parliament, comes as Oslo has hopes to hammer out a deal with Washington; Trade Minister Cecilie Myrseth is on Capitol Hill in an effort to ease a 15 percent US tariff hitting its exports. If the sensitive US leader is serious about exacting revenge on Norway, he could call on other countries to refuse to purchase Norwegian gas or oil or to limit official contacts with Oslo. Or the Trump administration could demand more in the form of Nato contributions. However, Norway has some wiggle room should Trump opt for vengeance. This comes in the form of Oslo's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's biggest, with around 40 percent invested in US markets. That's a number that would resonate with any businessman.

One thing, however, remains absolutely certain, and that is Trump - a rabble-rousing America First populist - exists as the ultimate bugbear of the globalist order and for that reason was never remotely considered as a real contender for the Peace Prize. Now it remains to be seen whether the author of the 'Art of the Deal' will move 180 degrees in the opposite direction and begin a series of military operations not limited to the streets of Portland and Chicago.

Presently, the 'near abroad' appears to look very tantalizing for Trump. On September 1, the US Navy carried out an airstrike on a ship from Venezuela, killing about a dozen suspected drug smugglers on the vessel. Whether we are witnessing the bloody revival of the Monroe Doctrine, an unabashed grab for resources, or both, remains to be seen but it did not go unnoticed that Trump changed the name of the 'Department of Defense' to the 'Department of War' at just about the same time, and as Pentagon chief Peter Hegseth assembled 800 military brass in Washington DC for a lecture about overweight generals in dresses. Was this a not-so-subtle warning from The Donald that he can morph into a war president at a moment's notice? The world may yet discover that Hell hath no fury like an Orange Man snubbed.