U.S. President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize after less than nine months in office. His critics at home and abroad say the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision came too early since Mr. Obama cannot yet claim any concrete achievement in dealing with challenging global issues.
But since Mr. Obama took office in January, a "new climate in international politics" has set in, as the committee said, and the image of the U.S. has changed for the better.
The committee's decision to bestow the Peace Prize on Mr. Obama indicates its hope and expectation that doing so will provide impetus to his and the international community's efforts to resolve those issues, especially nuclear disarmament and the fight against global warming. In a sense, great responsibility has been placed on Mr. Obama to strive even harder for concrete results.