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After eight years of retreat from the world stage under President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by a committee that praised his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and
Obama became just the third sitting U.S. president to win the honor and the first to get it after less than a year in office. In announcing the award, which reportedly came as a complete surprise to Obama and his staff, the committee said the president has "created a new climate in international politics," singling out his efforts to promote nuclear disarmament, his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo in June, efforts to restart the Middle East peace process, multilateral diplomacy on the world stage and emphasis on the role the United Nations can play in conflict resolution. Some administration critics were quick to say that the honor came before Obama, 48, has achieved any substantial wins on the international front, but the Nobel committee appeared to have made its decision as much on what Obama has attempted to do as what predecessor Bush did not. "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts," the committee said in its announcement of the prize, which comes with a $1.4 million award. "The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened." The announcement reportedly drew gasps of surprise in the room when it was announced in Oslo, as Obama was not even considered to be in the running among the 205 nominees until the final hours. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee continued, without mentioning his status as the first black U.S. president. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population." In winning the prize, Obama joins an elite group that includes Mother Teresa, former Vice President Al Gore, former President Jimmy Carter, former South African President Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Amnesty International and civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. He also is among a small fraternity of sitting U.S. presidents that have won the award, including Woodrow Wilson in 1919 — honored for helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treaty of Versailles after World War I — and Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, for his work to help end the Russo-Japanese war. According to The New York Times, after announcing the award, committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland answered a question about whether it came too early in Obama's term. "We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year," he explained. "We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do. ... The question we have to ask is, Who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world? ... And who has done more than Barack Obama?" A spokesperson for Obama said the president was woken up early Friday morning to the surprise news and was "humbled" by the honor. Swedish chemist/engineer Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, founded the award with a provision in his 1895 will that directed a committee selected by the Swedish president to reward "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses." The award will be presented in Oslo, Norway, on December 10. This report is provided by MTV News
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