Laureate Obama - Recognition of a changed America

THE decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama so extraordinarily early in his presidency — less than nine months after he took office — was as unexpected as it is unprecedented.

President Obama became the fourth American leader to be so honoured. He follows Theodore Roosevelt, who won in 1906 for his role in ending the 1905 war between Japan and Russia; Woodrow Wilson won in 1919 for engineering post-World War I treaties and Jimmy Carter was honoured in 2002 for “ untiring effort to find peaceful solutions ... to advance democracy and human rights”. These awards were based on achievement but President Obama’s is based on promise.

The award was made because of what he is not as much as for what he is. He is not George Bush, he is not Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. He is unambiguous on water-boarding and he closed Guantanamo.