President Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Friday, October 9, 2009

President Obama, who has pledged to place diplomacy ahead of confrontation and reached out to a skeptical world with offers of mutual understanding, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for what the committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

President Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Obama is only the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Prize for Peace — President Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906, President Woodrow Wilson in 1919.

Obama was nominated for the prize after just weeks in office, with the award today after less than nine months into the president’s term a sign that the Nobel committee is recognizing aspirations for peace over achievements.

The Nobel committee hailed the president’s creation of “a new climate in international politics.”

Ironically, the award arrives at a time when Obama is weighing the recommendation of the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops in a war now 8 years old. At the same time, the president, who campaigned with a promise to withdraw American forces from Iraq, is drawing down forces there, planning to pull out combat forces by next year and all troops by 2011.

Yet it recognizes the voiced objectives of a president who campaigned with promises to reengage the U.S. in world affairs and has personally reached out to erstwhile adversaries.

“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,” Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said. “In the past year, Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations.”

The committee was endorsing the American president’s “appeal that ‘Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges,’ ” he said.

Yet Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was quick to criticize the president’s prize.

“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ ” Steele said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights.”

Accolades flowed from the president’s allies.

“I’m delighted at this recognition of President Obama’s work to strengthen international cooperation,” sad Rep. Howard Berman (D-Valley Village), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It validates the president’s approach to tough transnational challenges such as global warming and the spread of nuclear arms. And it celebrates his steady efforts to improve America’s standing around the world.”

The Nobel committee had criticized Obama’s predecessor, former President George W. Bush, for engaging in largely unilateral military action in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. With the backing of Congress, Bush quickly invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban, and in spring of 2003 launched a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq intent on removing Saddam Hussein from power.

After awarding the 2002 prize to former President Carter, the committee’s chairman said it should be considered a “kick in the leg” to the Bush administration’s war policies.