OSLO — The announcement drew gasps of surprise and cries of too much, too soon. Yet President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday because the judges found his promise of disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore.
The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee – four of whom spoke to The Associated Press, said awarding Obama the peace prize could be seen as an early vote of confidence intended to build global support for the policies of his young administration.
They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen its role in combating climate change.
"Some people say – and I understand it – 'Isn't it premature? Too early?' Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond – all of us."
Jagland said the committee whittled down a record pool of 205 nominations and had "several candidates until the last minute," but it became more obvious that "we couldn't get around these deep changes that are taking place" under Obama.
Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor, and planned to travel to Oslo in December to accept the prize.
"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said at the White House. "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize."
Obama will donate the $1.4 million cash award that comes with the prize to charity.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said the decision showed that great things are expected from Obama and "wonderful recognition" of his effort to reach out to the Arab world after years of hostility.
"It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope," Tutu said.
Many were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in a presidency that began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline for the prize and has yet to yield concrete achievements in peacemaking.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the peace prize in 1983.
Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counterterrorism strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.
Jagland told AP that while the war in Afghanistan was a concern, the Obama administration "immediately started to reassess the strategy."
"That itself is important, because when something goes wrong, then you need to ask yourself why is it going wrong," he said.
Obama said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan, where he is seriously considering increasing the number of U.S. troops on the ground and asking for help from others as the war enters its ninth year.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi in Afghanistan condemned the Nobel committee's decision, saying Obama had only escalated the war and had "the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called the Nobel decision "hasty."
"The appropriate time for awarding such a prize is when foreign military forces leave Iraq and Afghanistan and when one stands by the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people," he was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the Nobel committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama."
"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told AP in a rare interview. Members of the committee usually speak only through its chairman.
The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts, but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than those of past winners, and the committee acknowledged they may not bear fruit at all.
"If everything goes wrong, then one cannot say that this was because of Barack Obama," Jagland said. "It could be that it is because of us, all the others, that didn't respond. But I cannot exclude that Barack Obama also can contribute to the eventual failure."
In Europe and much of the world, Obama is praised for bringing the U.S. closer to mainstream global thinking on such issues as climate change and multilateralism. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.
The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle.
At home, the picture is more complicated. Obama is often criticized by his political opponents as he attempts to carry out his agenda – from government spending to health care to Afghanistan.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said Obama won because of his "star power" rather than meaningful accomplishments.
"The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?'" Steele said.
Drawing criticism from some on the left, Obama has been slow to bring troops home from Iraq and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012.
The Nobel committee said it paid special attention to Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague and in April and at the United Nations last month.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership on nuclear non-proliferation.
"He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts," ElBaradei said.
In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The U.S. now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.
There has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.
Obama also has tried to restart stalled Mideast talks with no progress yet reported.
In the Gaza Strip, leaders of the radical Hamas movement said they had heard Obama's speeches on better relations with the Islamic world but had not been moved.
"We are in need of actions, not sayings," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "If there is no fundamental and true change in American policies toward the acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people, I think this prize won't move us forward or backward."
Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority. Yet the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in Congress.
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by the five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the panel has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties and two right-of-center members. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.
The secretive committee declined to say who nominated Obama. In Nobel tradition, nominations are kept secret for 50 years, unless those making the submissions go public about their picks. This year's nominations included Colombian activist Piedad Cordoba, Afghan woman's rights activist Simi Samar and Denis Mukwege, a physician in war-torn Congo who opened a clinic to help rape victims.
Nominators for the prize are broad and include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.
It would be hard to think of a more electrifying and deserved recipient of this year's Nobel Peace prize than President Obama. Obama is the fourth American president to win the Nobel prize. His predecessors are Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter.
Obviously, the award is based on the hope that Obama will achieve real progress in advancing diplomacy rather than confrontation around the globe. To some degree, he already has. American relations with Europe are vastly improved. He is focusing on global warming. Negotiations are underway with Iran. So are nuclear arms reductions talks with Russia. Leading conservatives such as George Shultz are calling for immediately ending sanctions on Cuba and restoring relations with it, as was emphasized at a New American Foundation event on the presidential Sequoia yacht hosted by Steve Clemons in Washington, D.C. last night.
In short, the moment is ripe for real change. So Obama needs to do more. Obviously, it would be utopian to expect that he can solve the world's ills overnight. But in foreign, as opposed to domestic, policy, Obama can seek to avoid the kind of bickering and squabbling that has dragged down health care. The fact is that the Nobel committee had handed him a unique opportunity. His acceptance speech in Oslo will offer him a golden chance to set forward a more sweeping and comprehensive vision of what his administration and America can do to advance peace. Obama should use the occasion to focus on the most volatile and dangerous region in the world, the Middle East.
This may be the biggest speech of Obama's presidency. Obama's prestige will never be higher. And the world will be listening. Obama needs to speak to it.
Some will say that Barack Obama's Nobel Prize is premature. "What has he done?" they'll ask.
Obama got the prize not for doing, but for being. Not for making peace, but for exemplifying something new on the world stage -- the politics of dignity.
The Nobel Committee has simply made explicit what many have sensed. President Obama is the herald of a dignitarian politics. Not libertarian, not egalitarian, but dignitarian.
Dignitarian politics represents a modern synthesis of libertarian and egalitarian politics. War between these two battle-scarred, now exhausted ideologies shaped both national and international politics throughout the twentieth century. Obama is the first politician of world stature to identify and model an alternative that can meet the challenges of the twenty-first. Awarding Obama the Nobel Prize is an expression of the hope that our best chance for world peace lies in the dignitarian politics of which he is an exemplar.
What is dignitarian politics? It is the recognition that people the world over actually want dignity more than they want either liberty or equality. In policy terms, it means ensuring dignity for all -- within and among nations.
Obama's dignitarianism manifests in his inclusiveness, his style, and his manners. Domestically, dignitarian politics supersedes identity politics to embrace blacks and whites, men and women, gays and straights, young and old, rich and poor, immigrants and the native-born. The president has also made a point of reaching out to those who disagree with him both domestically and internationally.
The Nobel Prize will put pressure on President Obama to make explicit his reasoning for what has been, up till now, a largely instinctive pursuit of the politics of dignity. Dignitarian politics means not condescending to Americans or citizens of other countries. It means not treating political opponents, whether at home or abroad, with indignity. It also means extending dignity in concrete ways, both political and economic, throughout the world. In programmatic terms, the quest for dignity is usefully conceived of as overcoming rankism -- the abuse of a power advantage to demean, hold at a disadvantage, or dehumanize those with less power.
Globally, Obama's politics of dignity makes Americans safer, in contrast to policies that, by humiliating others, leave us vulnerable to retaliation. Indignities make people indignant and so predispose them to side with our enemies, if not turn against us themselves. President Obama understands that part of a strong defense is not giving offense in the first place. He realizes that in an interdependent world, muscular exceptionalism is a losing strategy.
Dignitarian politics has a host of immediate, practical consequences for international affairs. If President Obama is seen as reacting defensively to indignities served up by his opponents, he will appear weak. But if he goes on the offensive, not against those opponents themselves, but rather in favor of an emergent politics of dignity, at which he is a natural, he will prevail. Awarding President Obama the Peace Prize is a bet on the Nobel Committee's part that the honor will support him in implementing the politics of dignity that he heralds.
One of the least glamorous ways to advance gay rights is to tell our stories. Again and again and again. Lavish fundraising balls are more fun, as are marching past the White House, meeting with senators, and blogging or writing op-eds (my own personal weakness). Introducing ourselves over and over again to the nation can be boring, can seem unnecessary if you live in an urban bubble where most people already get gay people, and is definitely an unfair burden: gays who seek basic equality must always be on their best behavior to try to earn rights that heterosexuals take for granted.
Gays and non-gays should share this burden, and my hope for President Obama's "big gay speech" tomorrow is that he has absorbed this lesson. Many of us have expressed frustration with the president for his failure to put real political capital behind campaign promises to fight for equal rights for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation. It's hard to imagine that the president has yet developed the courage to announce at this speech a major new policy initiative such as lifting the ban on openly gay troops by executive order, or a legislative effort such as beginning the work to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act. And his presence alone at a dinner of the largest gay rights organization in the world will not quiet the gay community. Nor should to it give license to the rest of the progressive community to stand idly by.
What President Obama can do at this speech is to model how a genuine straight ally can do his or her part to help end discrimination against gay people. Yes, he's the President, and so he ought to do much more. But until he does, he should be sharing our stories with the world, to help make it clear why equal rights matter--to gays and non-gays alike. Show the world, Mr. President, how we are just like you, and perhaps more important, how you are just like us: In what ways are we pretty normal, and in what ways are you kinda Queer?
Show how we're like you by telling the story of Michelle Patrick and Jennifer Putnam, mothers of Sam Portland, a high school football player in Portland, Maine, whose family is faced with the cruel and unnecessary loss of state marital recognition next month if Maine voters repeal a state law allowing his parents to be married. "We are an average family," says Sam, but society, his school, his doctors, and even some of his friends' parents view his family as "lesser" when the state says they don't count. Sam's family just wants to be treated like everybody else.
Show how we're like you by telling the story of Lt. Col. Edith Disler, a 25-year veteran and Air Force Academy professor who happens to be a lesbian. Disler was investigated and pulled from her classroom for discussing gays in the military, and she feared she might face a court-martial before her retirement. "I had to sneak out of a twenty-five year career in the Air Force, and throw my own retirement ceremony," says Disler, who also served our country as an arms control inspector and executive support officer to the Secretary of Defense. "It wasn't quite what my career was worthy of." Disler just wanted to teach her cadets to defend our country with the highest standards of integrity, but was foiled by an Air Force that sees homosexuality as permanently "other."
Many people--even those who support gay rights--don't seem to realize that literally tens of thousands of gay Americans are being wrenched from their partners or families because, absent marriage rights, they're not allowed to sponsor foreign nationals to reside with them in the U.S. So tell the story of Janet Dagley of New Jersey, whose son had to choose between his mother and his partner because his foreign-born partner can't live with him in New Jersey (while his sister was allowed to just because her partner is a man). "If you want to make a mother angry," writes Dagley, "give one of her children a right that you deny the other. And if you want to break a mother's heart, force one of her children to move far away from her in order to keep his household together." Dagley's son wants no more and no less than what his sister enjoys.
As a hate crimes bill finally makes its way into law, remind America of the tragic story of Matthew Shepard and all the untold youth who have suffered hate, abuse, brutality, and death just because of whom they love. And tell the story of Evangelical Christian, Brent Childers, a father who writes in Newsweek this week of his transformation from a hateful enabler of such violence to a gay rights advocate heading to this weekend's Washington march to show his "love for our LGBT brothers and sisters."
No speech by the president will be enough if he doesn't pair it with real action. But discrimination in America results in part from the nation's failure to understand that gays and lesbians are not alien beings but are, more or less, just like everybody else. After all, the rationale for banning openly gay troops is that straight people find them so alien that they could never trust them enough to share a foxhole. And a main rationale for banning gay marriage is that the love felt by a gay couple is too different from that felt by Barack and Michelle Obama to be called a marriage--a thoughtless echo of the sentiment and laws that once blocked marriages like that of President Obama's own parents.
The president has the chance on Saturday to help show the world that this ain't so. How are you like us, Mr. President? Your love for your family is just as important to you and just as prone to fragility; you've worked hard and paid your taxes and, like us, wanted to believe your government wouldn't slap a surcharge on your life just because of whom you love; and, despite what you've achieved, you've suffered discrimination and denigration because you're seen as different. Like it or not, you're Queer like us!
President Obama remains popular with his base, but he risks appearing to lack Clintonian empathy, for the jobless as well as for the GLBT community he has so far failed to lift up. He does not count gay people among his closest friends and aides, and if he fails to show that he truly gets gays, he will be damaged for the long haul. The question is not whether he says he favors our rights or even whether he favors them--those are both easy; the question is how much he'll risk to fight for us, and if he's not yet ready to go into battle, he'd better show, and not tell, us why we ought to trust his good intentions.
Gays and our allies must do our part, too. However inclined a politician might be to do the right thing, politics is about pressure, and we have the responsibility to continue to exert unbending pressure on our government and our fellow citizens to recognize that equal rights hurt no one but make all Americans better.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/president-obama-should-sh_b_315196.html
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