Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

President Obama wins 2009 Nobel peace prize. The conferral of one of the world’s top accolades on a President less than nine months in office was greeted with gasps of astonishment this morning in our small town. I don’t know if it has to do with the almost 100% Republican community here but even from my neutral point of view I still can’t comprehend the reasons behind this honor to the President.

Obama was honored “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland said. [link]

“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership,” President Obama said from the White House Rose Garden. ”I will accept this award as a call to action.”

Obama is the third sitting US President to have won the prize after President Roosevelt and Wilson. Former President Jimmy Carter won in 2002 and former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.

In 1906, President Roosevelt won the prize for brokering a peace between Russia and Japan – two countries that turned against US in future. In 1919, President Wilson won it for his post-WWI peace efforts. This didn’t prevent WWII. So the question is how can a President be merely awarded for initiative? Shouldn’t final result matter? For a layman it seems he was awarded simply because he is not George W. Bush.

Another question that always lingers in my mind when I hear of the Nobel peace prize is why did Mahatma Gandhi never receive one? I am not bringing Mahatma Gandhi in here because I am an Indian by birth but simply because I don’t know any person who deserves a peace prize more than Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never received the prize, being assassinated on 30 January 1948 two days before the closing date for the 1948 Peace Prize nominations. The Norwegian Nobel Committee had very likely planned to give him the Peace Prize in 1948 as they considered a posthumous award, but ultimately decided against it, and instead chose not to award the prize that year. It was stated then that “there was no suitable living candidate” but in 1961, it was awarded posthumously to Swedish diplomat and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld who died after being nominated. Years later, Nobel committee regretted their decision on Gandhi and when Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was ‘in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi’.

Going back to the burning question now, Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize so soon?

On a lighter note, President sure deserves a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his magnetic chemistry with his wife Michelle. [picture link]

(Cross-posted at  )