A White House Surprise

Pete Souza / The White House via Getty Images Obama's aides did not see the Nobel coming. Richard Wolffe on how the prize—and the harsh reaction to it—tested the skills of the White House spinners.

As the Nobel news filtered through the Situation Room and reporters’ messages piled up in the early hours of the morning, the first reaction inside a bleary-eyed White House was one of disbelief. Nobody knew the president had been nominated, let alone that he was a serious contender for the much-coveted peace prize.

“If you had told us last night,” said one White House aide, “we would have said, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”

Amid all the scrambling to stage a morning event in the Rose Garden and to write some remarks that could finely balance humility, surprise and foreign policy, there was a growing sense of pride.

“Today’s news was very humbling. And totally unexpected!” admitted one of the president’s closest aides. “It says a lot about his leadership and more importantly the cause. But there’s lots of hard work ahead.”

“Today’s news was very humbling. And totally unexpected!” admitted one of the president’s closest aides. “It says a lot about his leadership and more importantly the cause. But there’s lots of hard work ahead.”

Will the prize make a difference in how Obama does his job—and how the world sees him?

“We’re a little more clear-eyed than to think any foreign leader is going to be star-struck by an award,” said one White House official. “But it’s a sign that American leadership is back and there’s international recognition of the president’s priorities on non-proliferation, and on starting the Middle East peace process immediately. It’s a return of American leadership abroad, and that’s something that is being recognized and respected. It’s an affirmation of our goals in that sense, even though we have a lot of work to do.”

The White House is also clear-eyed enough to know that it is still enjoying an international honeymoon, especially a favorable contrast with the last occupant of the Oval Office. Obama’s prize may be seen in some quarters as a rejection of the Bush foreign-policy legacy by the Nobel committee.

Besides the recognition, the Nobel represents something else: free advertising. For an administration that wants to re-engage the world, especially the Muslim world, there is everything to be gained by having the word “peace” placed next to the title “American president”—rather than eight years of hearing the word “war.”

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Of course, the White House recognizes the irony of winning the peace prize just as President Obama is trying to wind down one war—Iraq—and hasten the end of another, in Afghanistan. But the view inside the administration is that the Nobel committee’s stamp of approval is an affirmation of Team Obama’s attempts at securing peace—even in the most dangerous corners of the globe.

Take Iran, for example. The Bush administration resolutely refused to engage with the Ahmadinejad regime, as did Obama’s principal opponents in the 2008 campaign—Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton, and GOP nominee John McCain. Obama campaigned on a pledge to sit down at the table with Tehran, and talk nukes. For all the grief they took, the Obama camp delivered on its promise to put negotiation ahead of armed conflict. The American public seems to approve; a recent Pew Research Center poll showed that almost two-thirds of Democrats, independents, and Republicans support the policy of direct talks with Iran on nuclear weapons.

That may or may not be worthy of a peace prize. But the White House believes the shift in approach may have had something to do with the Nobel committee’s decision to give Obama the award. If he can win hearts and minds in Oslo, they figure, he just might be able to persuade his allies in Europe and elsewhere around the world of the correctness of his cause.

Richard Wolffe is Daily Beast columnist and an award-winning journalist, and senior strategist at Public Strategies. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama's presidential campaign for Newsweek. His book, Renegade: The Making of a President, was published by Crown in June.

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