Obama is Awared the Nobel Peace Prize

Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his "efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." I have to be honest, this is somewhat surprising to me. I recognize that Obama has some high intentions to promote international peace and establish communication amongst people, but he really hasn't made any achievements towards these efforts. Growing up, my parents would reward me for doing good things. I never got rewarded for having good intentions when the results were bad though. At best, good intentions just kept me from getting punished if things didn't work out the way I hoped.

This award has me questioning if presenting Obama with the Peace Prize has some alternate agenda. Is this a racial move? I did notice that for the 2009 year, no other African Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize. Of the 11 total Nobel Prize recipients in 2009 (including Obama), only 8 are white. The other three include Obama (African American), Charles Kao (Chinese) and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Indian). All of the US recipients for 2009 were white until Obama received his. Seems there could have been some strong persuasion to introduce some additional diversity to the 2009 group.

Another thought is that perhaps the award is intended to persuade Obama's decisions in a certain direction for future issues. Take a look at all of the concern over in Iran with nuclear capabilities. Can someone who has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize make the decision to declare war on another nation? Other issues similar (some smaller and some larger) also exist which this award could have an impact on.

All in all, these are just speculations. I don't have any facts to suggest that either were the actual motivation behind presenting the award to Obama. However, the award in itself and the justification provided doesn't make much sense to me since Obama only has intentions at this point and not actual accomplishments.