Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama

President Barack Obama may not have brought home the Summer Olympic Games from Copenhagen, but he did considerably better in Oslo, winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Already his detractors—and even some of his loyal supporters—are wondering what has he done to merit the prestigious award since he hasn’t completed a year in office and with only a string of impressive speeches to his credit.

Maybe those speeches resonated much heavier than most imagined.  Maybe as a few right wing pundits have suggested his “Hope Doctrine” gained some traction abroad.   Clearly, the president has incredible international popularity and his speech at the United Nations last month may have been the one to seal the deal, though it contained more promise than substance.

“I have carried this message from London to Ankara; from Port of Spain to Moscow; from Accra to Cairo; and it's what I will speak about today,” Obama said of his peace initiatives before the UN General Assembly. “Because the time has come for the world to move in a new direction. We must embrace a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect, and our work must begin now.”

The nation and the world are still waiting to hear Obama’s reaction to the honor.  He may be just as stunned as the millions of others.  According to his press secretary Robert Gibbs, “The president was humbled to be selected,” he reported on Friday morning.

Certainly, there are a few accomplishments that are notable during his nine months in the White House, including his stance on torture and the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.   And he was able to get Russia and China to go along with his plans on halting the spread of nuclear proliferation.

But for each relative gain on peace there are at least two or three failed promises made during his campaign and his current occupation of the Oval Office.   He has made little breakthrough in the Middle East deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians.   We still have more than 130,000 troops in Iraq and there is the prospect that even more will be deployed to Afghanistan.

These latter failures directly contradict what the Nobel Committee stated in selecting him for the prize.  “His extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, also citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

Hours after the announcement there was flood of reaction, much of it predicable and mixed.  Even so, there were hopeful comments from voices in the Middle East.  Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, believed the award could be a good omen for peace in the region. “We hope that he will be able to achieve peace in the Middle East and achieve Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders and establish an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital,” Erekat told Reuters.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the award would enhance Obama's ability “to contribute to establishing regional peace in the Middle East and a settlement between us and the Palestinians that will bring security, prosperity and growth to all the peoples of the region.”

Screenwriter Michael Russow was less enthusiastic and very skeptical about Obama’s triumph.  “Whatever one might feel about Obama, he has not earned this singular award. Few American presidents have received it and of those who have, it was bestowed after they'd been engaged in something special. Theodore Roosevelt had helped to negotiate peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson had tirelessly worked for the creation of the League of Nations -- a struggle that was blamed for causing the serious stroke he suffered, which left him disengaged in the last years of his presidency.

“I believe it is enormously premature for Obama to be getting this great tribute, which to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients and the work all of them performed over so many years,” Russow concluded.

According to the Nobel Peace Prize website, the prize is an international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in peace.

The prize, which includes about $1.3 million, a gold medal, and a diploma is presented on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, its founder. Dr. Ralph J. Bunche was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1950. Fourteen years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the second, the youngest person thus far to receive the Peace Prize.

It should be noted that Toni Morrison was the last American to win a Nobel in literature in 1993.