ICOT, I did get the year incorrect. As you mentioned, North Korea was already in violation of its 1994 agreement by the time the Prize recipients were considered in 2002. So why would the Nobel Prize committee have considered North Korea in awarding the prize? That doesn’t make sense. Given that Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat were awarded the Peace Prize in 1978 (President Carter was nominated after the deadline), it does make sense that the committee felt that Carter was due for a prize (even though the committee does not usually recognize mediators, President Clinton received the 1998 prize for his role in Northern Ireland). It’s also possible that his meeting with Fidel Castro earlier in 2002 influenced the committee’s decision. Announcing the award in 2002 was obviously politically motivated by world events at the time, especially the developing war in Iraq which was not generally popular. Based on the facts above, I think Mr. Will’s interpretation is incorrect.
The award speech does mention that not all of Carter’s efforts were successful–probably a reference to the North Korean agreement.