Obama being declared the winner of this year’s

Nobel Peace Prize is indeed a surprise. The Nobel prize committee announced in Oslo, Norway, that it had awarded its annual peace prize to Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” less than nine months after he took office — more specifically, for his work to improve international diplomacy and rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said in its announcement. With American forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama’s name was hardly on anyone’s mind even as speculation centred on human rights activists in China and Afghanistan and political figures in Africa.

The prize was announced as the Obama administration wrestles with global crises from the Middle East to Iran to North Korea, and the White House is considering whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The announcement does little to further the myriad challenges he is facing at home and abroad; Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty and ambitious agenda.

At home, his popularity ratings have been falling, with Americans unhappy about rising umemployment; his flagship effort at revamping the healthcare system is becoming unpopular with each passing day.

Globally, the woes have kept on piling up, too. On Afghanistan there is no clarity; he is vacillating in accepting the advice of his military commanders to put more American troops on the ground even as the Democratic base wants him to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Nearly 800 American lives have been lost since the 2001 invasion began. While pulling out is not an option, putting more Americans at risk is also becoming politically difficult. Next door, in Pakistan, Obama is looking for a way to motivate the government to try harder. He has chosen the well-trodden path of giving more US money. But news has also come in that Pakistan’s military are questioning the proposed $1.5 billion a year for five years as potentially meddlesome. The Pakistani public wants its country to have nothing to do with the US.

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