Those crazy Norwegians surprise us all....

Crikey.

Even as an Obama cheerleader, I must confess to utter bafflement (at first) at his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "What for?" I asked myself. Well he's set old Georgie Mitchell off to the Middle East to try to start talks. He announced the scrapping of the planned Polish missiles. And he's made conciliatory noises to the Muslim world, not least with his visit to Turkey and his video broadcast to Iran.

But perhaps this bold move by those crazy Norwegians is mostly motivated by the simple fact that Barack Obama, someone with a bit of knowledge of the world outside the 50 States, is President Barack Obama and George Bush is now a librarian in Texas.

If there was one thing I would like the award to be for, it would be the scrapping of the Polish missile plan. If there was anything that George Bush did which was downright stupid, needlessly belligerent and completely counter-productive ('fighting the last war' on steroids, I'd call it), that was it. And if there is one thing which Obama has done which I am genuinely pleased about, which makes the world a safer place, it is that move. It is a very important totemic action. But, of course, the reasons he did it, with the support of Robert Gates who proposed the original plan, included changes in technology and the situation visa vis Iran. As such the move doesn't seem to have caused Obama any unpopularity in the States. That makes it doubly brilliant.

I hope this award counters some of the bad press Obama got last week for a similar Scandinavian surprise when he went to Copenhagen and left with his tail between his legs after Chicago was turned down as the next Olympics site after London.