President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

President Obama, who has pledged to place diplomacy ahead of confrontation and reached out to a skeptical world with offers of mutual understanding, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for what the committee called "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Obama is only the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Prize for Peace -- President Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906, President Woodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson in 1919.

Obama was nominated for the prize after just weeks in office, with the award today after less than nine months into the president's term a sign that the Nobel committee is recognizing aspirations for peace over achievements.

The Nobel committee hailed the president's creation of "a new climate in international politics."

Ironically, the award arrives at a time when Obama is weighing the recommendation of the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops in a war now 8 years old. At the same time, the president, who campaigned with a promise to withdraw American forces from Iraq, is drawing down forces there, planning to pull out combat forces by next year and all troops by 2011.

Yet it recognizes the voiced objectives of a president who campaigned with promises to reengage the U.S. in world affairs and has personally reached out to erstwhile adversaries.

"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," Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said. "In the past year, Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations."

The committee was endorsing the American president's "appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges,' " he said.

Yet Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was quick to criticize the president's prize.

"The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?' " Steele said in a statement. "It is unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights."

Accolades flowed from the president's allies.

"I'm delighted at this recognition of President Obama's work to strengthen international cooperation," sad Rep. Howard Berman (D-Valley Village), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It validates the president's approach to tough transnational challenges such as global warming and the spread of nuclear arms. And it celebrates his steady efforts to improve America's standing around the world."

The Nobel committee had criticized Obama's predecessor, former President George W. BushPresident George W. Bush, for engaging in largely unilateral military action in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. With the backing of Congress, Bush quickly invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban, and in spring of 2003 launched a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq intent on removing Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein from power.

After awarding the 2002 prize to former President Carter, the committee's chairman said it should be considered a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's war policies.

More recently, former Vice President Al GoreVice President Al Gore -- who had challenged Bush for election in 2000 -- won the prize for his work on climate change in 2007.

Since taking office, Obama has reached out to the Muslim world with a speech in Cairo in June appealing for understanding between the West and the rest of the world. He has traveled widely abroad delivering a similar message. And most recently he called on the General Assembly of the United Nations to commit all nations to eventual nuclear disarmament.

Calling for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," Obama said in his widely viewed Cairo address that "the cycle of suspicion and discord must end."'

Last month, Obama told the U.N., "Like all of you, my responsibility is to act in the interest of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests. But it is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 -- more than at any point in human history -- the interests of nations and peoples are shared."

Obama also has committed his administration to renewed attempts to broker a lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, with the president endorsing a "two-state" solution that his predecessor also had supported.

"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given to someone . . . who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens StoltenbergJens Stoltenberg said.

The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize.

Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond TutuDesmond Tutu and Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela congratulated Obama on receiving the prize.

And Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan TsvangiraiMorgan Tsvangirai said Obama deserved it.

Tsvangirai, who joined a unity government in Zimbabwe this year with his political rival President Robert MugabePresident Robert Mugabe, was speaking to reporters in a visit to Spain to collect his own award, a lifetime achievement award from the Cristobal Gabarron Foundation.

Tutu, retired Anglican archbishop for Cape Town, South Africa, said the award to Obama was imaginative and surprising.

"It is wonderful," he told reporters in Cape Town. "He has had a very significant impact. It has changed the temperature and almost everybody feels a little more hopeful about the world," he said. "What wonderful recognition of someone who has already made such an impact on our planet with regards to the Muslim world, nuclear disarmament, climate change and, to some extent, the Middle East. He has reached out to the Arab world, including Iran and North Korea."

The Nelson Mandela Foundation released a statement saying, "We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty."

Mandela shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel required that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

The prize is awarded by a five-member member committee elected by the Norwegian parliament. The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.