WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said today he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize “as an affirmation of American leadership” after receiving the award just nine months into his term and without the record of achievement of past laureates.

“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures” who have won previously, Obama said in the White House Rose Garden. “I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.”
Obama will travel to Oslo, Norway, in December to accept the award. The award also comes with a $1.4 million prize, which an Obama spokesman said would be donated to charity.
None of the organizations or analysts that follow Nobel prizes predicted the 2009 award for Obama, who is the third sitting U.S. president to have won the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won in 2002 and former Vice President Al Gore received it in 2007.
In giving Obama the prize, Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the five-member Nobel committee, said Obama “created a new climate in international politics.”
The committee “in particular looked at Obama’s vision and work toward a world without atomic weapons,” Jagland said.
In his speech, Obama said much of the work he is trying to undertake, such as ridding the world of nuclear weapons, is unlikely to be completed before he leaves office.
As Obama, 48, is lauded by the committee, he’s presiding over two wars and is meeting with his generals today to discuss whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
Obama learned of the award when White House spokesman Robert Gibbs woke him with the news at 6 a.m. “He was just very surprised,” Gibbs told reporters.
The president said that shortly after he learned of the award, his daughter, Malia, “walked in and said, ‘Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo’s birthday,’” a reference to the family dog.
Then, he said, his other daughter, Sasha, added, “ ‘Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up.’ So it’s good to have kids to keep things in perspective.”
Reactions ranged from the congratulations of fellow world leaders to surprise and skepticism of academics and political foes, who said the president didn’t have a record that justified the award.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Obama’s popularity, not his accomplishments, won him the award.
“It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” he said in a statement.
Some Republicans had kind words.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama’s presidential rival last year, told CNN he could not divine the Nobel committee’s intentions, “but I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I’m sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to. But as Americans, we’re proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.”
And Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said, “under any circumstances I thought an appropriate response is congratulations.”
But GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett, who is running for governor of South Carolina, mocked Obama’s prize. “I’m not sure what the international community loved best; his waffling on Afghanistan, pulling defense missiles out of Eastern Europe, turning his back on freedom fighters in Honduras, coddling Castro, siding with Palestinians against Israel, or almost getting tough on Iran,” Barrett said.
Congress’ top Republican leaders — Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio — were silent on Obama’s award.
The award may set up expectations Obama can’t fulfill, said Shen Dingli, deputy dean of Fudan University’s international studies institute in Shanghai.
“It’s a dangerous thing to give Obama this prize after just nine months in office, because what happens in the next three years could show him to have been undeserving,” Shen said. “It takes decades to determine what scientific work is deserving of a Nobel prize.”
Former Polish President Lech Walesa, a Nobel Peace laureate, said the prize was handed out too quickly. “He hasn’t made such a contribution. He’s proposing things, getting started, but he still has to do something,” Walesa said.
Some foreign leaders praised the committee’s decision.
Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he “applauded the award,” U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent Obama a private message of congratulations and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called the decision “surprising, exciting” because “it can contribute to the realization of the president’s visions.” Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said everyone should now support Obama’s goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Obama was elected last year on a platform of extracting U.S. forces from Iraq and closing the terror detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This contributed to changing the negative perception of the U.S. after the presidency of George W. Bush.
The Nobel committee alluded to the shift in tone.
“Multilateral diplomacy is again central, with emphasis on the role the United Nations and other international institutions should play,” Jagland said. “Dialogue and negotiations are the preferred method to solve even the most difficult international conflicts.”
The Nobel committee had been critical of the Bush administration. Upon awarding Carter the peace prize in 2002, Gunnar Berge, the Norwegian committee chairman, responded with “an unconditional yes” when asked if the award was meant to be a rebuke of Bush.
The selection of Obama is “highly political,” said Nicole Bacharan, associate researcher at the National Foundation of Political Sciences in Paris. The Nobel jury “chose a symbol over completed actions.”
Bush declined to comment through his spokesman, David Sherzer.
Obama has sought to improve relations with the Arab world, held negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, and used a speech to the United Nations last month to call for a cut in Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals.
The president has moved quickly to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge for greater U.S. support for the UN, a contrast with the Bush administration’s skeptical stance.
The Obama administration reversed the policy adopted by Bush by joining the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, backing a General Assembly declaration urging the decriminalization of homosexuality, and contributing government funds to a UN agency that offers abortion counseling.
Last month, Obama became the first U.S. president to preside over a meeting of the Security Council, which unanimously adopted a U.S.-written resolution calling for progress toward his goal of nuclear-weapons disarmament. The administration also expressed greater support for the International Criminal Court, which Bush opposed, and erased U.S. debts to the UN for the first time since 1999.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he “looks forward to deepening the U.S.-UN relationship as a key building block to a better and safer world.”
The goal of a world without nuclear weapons has received a boost from Obama winning the award, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington.
“Before the election, Obama came out clearly in support of a broad, balanced agenda to reduce and eliminate the nuclear risk,” he said.
There were 205 names submitted for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, the highest number of nominations in the history of the prize. The names of the nominees can’t be revealed until 50 years later.
Obama has distinguished himself from his predecessor with efforts to repair relations with the Muslim world. In a June 4 speech at Cairo University, he pledged to “seek a new beginning” for the U.S. and the Islamic world and end a “cycle of suspicion and discord.”
Still, some critics questioned whether he deserved the award.
“There’s a lot more that Obama needs to achieve for peace and for the Palestinian people in order to receive this award,” Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, said in a telephone interview. The U.S., European Union and Israel brand Hamas, which controls Gaza, a terrorist organization. “So far nothing has changed in the Obama administration’s policies from previous governments.”
Other Arab politicians said they hoped the prize would strengthen Obama’s hand in Middle East peace negotiations. The decision may “provide a stimulus for peace,” said Lebanon’s foreign minister, Fawzi Salloukh.
“Very few leaders, if at all, were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such profound impact,” said Israeli President Shimon Peres, co-winner of the 1994 Nobel award.
The prize, along with other honors for literature, physics, medicine and chemistry, was created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and first awarded in 1901. Past laureates include Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa and groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Prizes for literature, chemistry, medicine and physics, are picked by the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation.
Obama said today he was as surprised as anybody by the announcement.
“This is not how I expected to wake up this morning,” he said.