Did Obama deserve the peace prize?

It’s the ultimate win of “style over substance,” said the United Arab Emirates’ Gulf News in an editorial. U.S. President Barack Obama essentially won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his “willingness to talk” and for his “sincere belief that diplomacy, not military might, can achieve lasting results.” But speeches and good intentions are not the same as deeds. In the most telling passage of their citation, the five Norwegians who make up the Nobel committee said Obama had created “a new climate” in international relations. “One could simply argue that any leader who followed George Bush would naturally have created a new climate, simply by replacing the warmonger.” This award, then, was just Europe’s gush of relief that Bush is gone.

Dismissing Obama’s award as being all about Bush is “a tad too easy,” said Canada’s Globe and Mail. Although he’s only been in office nine months, Obama has made “incremental but real advances” in international relations. He abandoned the Bush plan to put a missile shield in Europe, an “act of peace” that helped to win over Russia, which is now helping to restrain Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Obama was also instrumental in transforming the Group of 20 nations “into a forum for the resolution of international issues that bridge the developed and developing world.” Perhaps most important, his Cairo address to the Muslim world “was the best kind of political engagement: It displayed a respect for rich cultures, while challenging Muslims and their leaders to live up to their responsibilities.”

Those who insist that Obama should have achieved world peace before winning the Nobel are missing the point, said Carlos Fuentes in Mexico’s El Norte. Yes, the struggles Obama is working to resolve—nuclear disarmament, nuclear proliferation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—have no solution yet. In fact, they might never be resolved, because “they are part of a world in constant evolution.” Obama’s genius is that he understands this. Rather than attacking each world crisis “according to the atrocious doctrine of pre-emption,” Obama seeks dialogue and negotiation. Although he is leader of a superpower, he recognizes that other countries have valuable perspectives of their own. Where Bush tried to impose America’s vision, Obama seeks a common vision. “Is not that a fundamental shift in foreign relations?”

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Yes, said Scotland’s Daily Record, but that doesn’t mean he deserves what may be the world’s most prestigious honor. Deserved or not, the Noble Peace Prize could turn out to be more of an albatross for Obama than a blessing, if for no other reason than that it sets expectations so high. “Perhaps the decision tells us more about the world we live in” than it does about Obama—“a world where hope is the only thing that many people have left to cling on to.” Now the U.S. president is burdened with not only the hopes of Americans but also “the hopes and aspirations of a despairing world.” To live up to the prize, he’ll have to “turn those hopes into reality.” Good luck to him—and to us all.