19 April 2015

Obama’s Nobel no longer undeserved

T. P. SREENIVASAN

ReutersAmong the accomplishments of the Nobel Laureate which were enumerated by the Nobel Committee were his Cairo speech to reach out to the Muslim world.

Barack Obama's accomplishments listed by the Nobel Committee will not match his recent, path-breaking moves towards Myanmar, Cuba and Iran.

In 2009, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided that the Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded to U.S. President Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, and within the first year of his election as the American President, no one, not even the recipient himself, thought that he deserved it. “There was a sense of surprise and even shock,… a belief that the award was premature, a disservice and a political liability,” said a Washington Postcommentator. The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, himself, denied the charitable suggestion that the award was in anticipation of Mr. Obama living up to his promise. “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.

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