The prize reflects the spirit of engagement Obama has brought, writes Denis Staunton, Foreign Editor
THE PEACE prize has long been the most controversial category in the annual Nobel list but seldom has an award caused such astonishment as yesterday’s decision to give the prize to Barack Obama.
While Republicans poured scorn on the award, even the president’s own aides at first found the news hard to believe. “It’s not April 1st, is it?” one White House official said when a television reporter told him about the prize.
The arguments against honouring Obama with the world’s highest distinction for statesmanship are clear and, at first glance, compelling. The young American president has made a number of memorable speeches but he has not ended any armed conflicts or concluded any peace treaties. Worse still, he is engaged in two wars and appears poised within days to give in to his generals’ demands to increase by tens of thousands the number of US troops in Afghanistan.
Obama was at pains yesterday to play down his own role in his elevation to the Nobel pantheon of world statesmen. “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.
Alfred Nobel, who made his fortune out of dynamite and the manufacture of weapons, said in his will that the peace prize should be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
At first, the prize committee adhered strictly to Nobel’s prescription, usually honouring leaders who promoted peace or worked towards disarmament. Of the two previous sitting US presidents to receive the prize, Theodore Roosevelt won it in 1906 for mediating in a war between Russia and Japan and Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for his role in ending the first World War and establishing the League of Nations.
In recent decades, however, the peace prize has taken on a more aspirational character, often serving as a political endorsement of individuals or groups who are oppressed within their own states.
Recent recipients include the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 and Iranian dissident Shirin Ebadi in 2003, both of whom have shown great courage without achieving their political aims. Indeed, the prize may have strengthened the resolve of Burma’s military junta to keep Suu Kyi under the house arrest.
Obama’s award is clearly aspirational in nature, despite claims by committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland that it was in recognition of his achievements in office.
“We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year,” he said. “And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do.”
The peace prize is a political award that reflects the outlook of the Europeans in whose gift it is. For Obama, it is in part a reward for not being George Bush; but the Nobel committee’s brief statement yesterday made clear that it was more than that. “Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts,” the committee said.
The statement explicitly mentioned Obama’s efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals and Jagland singled out the president’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world as examples of the renewed spirit of engagement he has brought to international relations.
Obama has few tangible achievements to show for his diplomacy but it is difficult to overstate the significance of the change he has brought to Washington’s approach to foreign policy.
After eight years during which the US snarled or sneered at multilateral bodies, Obama’s administration has embraced the United Nations, the Group of 20 and a host of other international groups as vehicles to pursue the American interests in concert with others.
Partly on account of his own background but also because of his demeanour, Obama can speak to people from other nations, cultures and faiths with an ease none of his predecessors could aspire to.
“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 Nobel committee said. “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.”
If the prize is meant to boost Obama’s efforts to promote nuclear disarmament, broker peace in the Middle East and make multilateralism more effective, it could also serve as a standard against which his future actions will be judged. It’s one thing for an American commander-in-chief to order an escalation of the military campaign in Afghanistan but quite another for a Nobel Peace laureate to wade deeper into bloody war. The prize could add authority to Obama’s peace-making efforts in the Middle East but that could count for little in the face of a divided Palestinian leadership and an Israeli government that depends on the hard right.
“I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honour specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes,” the president said. “And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action – a call for all nations to confront the . . . challenges of the 21st century.”