According to Alfred Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who "has done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." In other words: for results. Even Obama in his own words questioned whether he was worthy of the prestigious honor. Certainly, it is no fault of his own. President Obama did not nominate himself, lobby for the prize or otherwise have anything to do with it. It was decided by five committee members chosen by the Norwegian parliament. So, it is difficult for me to understand the anger coming from the Radical Right. But there must be some reason that he was awarded the medal? Rush Limbaugh, the radio show host, entertainer, and political pundit stated that the award is just more Bush bashing by the Europeans. To so some degree, we at The Party of Common Sense agree.

Foreign policy during the Bush era was dominated by Neoconservatives, who believed that international diplomacy was a zero-sum game. That is, if one side gains a concession, the other side must lose something. Neoconservatives also realized that the United States was the sole remaining superpower in the world, and felt that the United States shouldn't have to negotiate, but rather we should be able to have our way through fear and fiat. The Iraq War was meant to be an object lesson to petty dictators everywhere: either you do what the US wants or you will lose your power, your country, and perhaps even your life. These goals can be seen in the final ultimatum put forth by President Bush prior to the invasion: Saddam Hussein and his sons must step down. Regime change wouldn't necessarily solve the problem of weapons of mass destruction. If they had stepped down and a general took over, would Iraq really have changed course? No, but it would satisfy the Neoconservatives who wanted to show heads of state that if you failed to heed the United States you have a lot to lose.

The Neoconservative movement included people such as John Bolton, whom Bush made an interim appointment as the US Representative to the UN. In a speech in 1994, John Bolton stated, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States." They had little time for the United Nations, where other nations get a voice, or for diplomacy. When Realists, such as Condoleezza Rice, forced the Neoconservatives into negotiations with Iran over potential nuclear ambitions, the Neoconservative positions was: we will only sit down with the Iranians to discuss halting their nuclear ambitions if they first stop all nuclear programs. This would be akin to a car dealer saying that he'll negotiate a discount only after you buy the car at full price. Clearly, they weren't serious about negotiating.

There were two main flaws in this thinking. The first is that this unilateralist view required a fair amount of hubris - confidence that our military could affect regime change anywhere in the world. As we saw, the Iraq War did not "practically pay for itself", and in fact dragged on. Nor did regime change in Afghanistan eliminate it as a breeding ground for terrorism. The second problem with this line of thinking is that diplomacy is not necessarily a zero-sum game. These combine to be deadly errors because the first demands that we cannot go it alone and need to get world backing and assistance to achieve our goals. By shunning diplomacy, we shut out any hope of garnering world assistance.

Sure, every nation has its own interests. However, often these interests overlap, and at times all nations have common interests. For example, technology or medical advances help the peoples of all nations. Any nation that reduces pollution in the seas or assists in reducing global warming helps all nations. Free trade, such as The North American Free Trade Agreement, helps both sides. Poorer nations get access to America's large market and developing nations get access to America's technology and the necessary materials to build out their emerging infrastructures. Assistance to Columbia to fight drug and drug trafficking helps the Columbian government fight off becoming a narco-state, and for the US it reduces the drugs on American streets. This type of negotiating can be called win-win negotiation. If I have a surplus of peanut butter and you have a surplus of bread, we can negotiate a trade where both sides win - and are able to have peanut butter sandwiches. A tad simplistic example, but the philosophy extends to even complex international negotiations.

What Obama did, in the eyes of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, was to repeal the Neoconservative ideas and to attempt to find common ground with other nations in the world. Rather than approaching every discussion as a zero sum game - that if we conceded anything, we are losing something - Obama and his team are trying to find common ground in win-win negotiating. For example, take the missiles in Poland. These were going to be out-of-date before they were even installed. They would have been more symbolic than actually functional. And we needed Russia support on pressuring Iran. Russia has been assisting Iran with building of a nuclear reactor to generate energy. This was a purely commercial enterprise, but also indirectly assisted them in getting advancing their military ambitions to build a nuclear bomb. But it certainly isn't in Russia's interest to have a nuclear and unpredictable Iran so close to its borders. So we trade away a missile system we don't want for Russia's assistance in preventing a nuclear Iran which they don't want. This represents a whole new tact in international relations. Obviously, America, representing the world's remaining superpower and full quarter of the world's GDP, is a sizable force. It was this new thinking that captured the attention of the Nobel committee. There is great hope that by embracing a new approach to international diplomacy that Obama and his team can affect great change for good in the world. Now it's just a matter of delivering.