Members of the Norwegian committee that gave US President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize are strongly defending their choice against a storm of criticism that the award was premature and a potential liability for him.
Asked to comment on the uproar following Friday’s announcement, four members of the five-seat panel said they had expected the decision to generate both surprise and criticism.
Three of them rejected the notion that Obama hadn’t accomplished anything to deserve the award, while the fourth declined to answer that question. A fifth member didn’t answer calls seeking comment.
“We simply disagree that he has done nothing,” committee chairman Thorbjörn Jagland said on Tuesday.
Jagland singled out Obama’s efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.
“All these things have contributed to — I wouldn’t say a safer world — but a world with less tension,” Jagland said by phone from the French city of Strasbourg, where he was attending meetings in his other role as secretary-general of the Council of Europe.
He said most world leaders were positive about the award and that most of the criticism was coming from the media and from Obama’s political rivals.
“I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous,” he said, adding that the award to Obama followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, who established the Nobel Prizes in his 1895 will.
“Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year,” Jagland said. “Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?”
Aagot Valle, a Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, dismissed suggestions that the decision to award Obama was without merit.
“Don’t you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?” Valle said by phone from the western coastal city of Bergen. “Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I’m not afraid of a debate on the peace prize decision. That’s fine.”
The left-leaning committee, whose members are appointed by the Norwegian parliament, lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease US conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the US role in fighting climate change.
However, the decision stunned even the most seasoned Nobel watchers. They hadn’t expected Obama, who took office barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline, to be seriously considered until at least next year.
The award drew heated derision from Obama’s political opponents in the Republican party, and was even questioned by some members of Obama’s own Democratic party.
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said naming Obama showed “how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become.”
In a fundraising letter, Steele wrote that “the Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control. And truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way.”
Nobel Committee member Inger-Marie Ytterhorn said the president didn’t greet the news with joy.
“I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to Norway, and he didn’t look particularly happy,” she said.
“Whenever we award the peace prize, there is normally a big debate about it,” said Ytterhorn, a nine-year veteran of the award committee.
Asked whether there was a risk that the prize could backfire on Obama by raising expectations even higher and give ammunition to his critics, Ytterhorn said “it might hamper him” because it could distract from domestic issues such as healthcare reform.
Valle, who left her seat in parliament last week because of her Nobel panel appointment, said the criticism shouldn’t overshadow important issues raised by the prize.
“Of course I expected disagreement and debate on the prize, on giving him the prize,” she said. “But what I want now is that we seriously raise a discussion regarding nuclear disarmament.”
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