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American Morning

President Obama Arrives in Oslo; Defense Secretary Gates Wraps Up Surprise Trip to Afghanistan; The President and the Peace Prize; How Does he Reconcile War with Award; Big Money and Climate Debate

Aired December 10, 2009 - 06:59   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, President Barack Obama about to accept the Nobel Peace Prize live at this hour. You're looking at live pictures from Oslo, Norway. The presentation about to get under way in the next 30 minutes. It's 1:00 there in Oslo. Norway's royal family, King Harald V and Queen Sonja meeting with the President and First Lady just before the award ceremony. And good morning. Thanks for being with us at a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. It is Thursday, the 10th of December. I'm John Roberts.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. As we said, President Obama about to become the third sitting U.S. President and the fourth ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and we're showing you live pictures again of the President And First Lady as they are getting ready to head to the awards ceremony in Oslo City Hall; also, Norway's royal family is accompanying them as well.

The President is scheduled to be presented with the Nobel prize in just about a half hour, and we're going to hear him speak, of course, right after that. CNN is the place to be for the most complete live coverage of this historic and controversial event. White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux also live in Oslo covering the ceremony, and we have with us Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr in Afghanistan; that's where the President has ordered an escalation of the war ahead of accepting his peace prize.

And joining us here in our studio, we're very, very glad to cover every big angle of the event with our CNN chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley, and our senior political analyst, David Gergen. Thanks for being with us, everyone.

ROBERTS: Yes. It's quite a moment for President Obama. He is about to become a Nobel Peace Prize winner and taking you back here as we watch the procession coming in; the president accompanied by his wife, royal family. The President also brought some very close friends of his from Chicago as well. The King's guards is what you hear there, sounding their horns to start the ceremony.

Overnight, the President and the First Lady were arriving in Norway as about four hours ago, board Air Force One. They'll be there for just a short 26 hours before heading home to Washington.

And just last hour they were greeted by King Harold V and Queen Sonia. Public photo session followed by a private audience with Norway's royals.

Let's go live to our White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. And the world is going to be listening closely to the remarks when he speaks in about 40 minutes time. We just received an embargoed copy of the remarks, so we're taking a look at that.

He's going to have to reconcile ramping up the war in Afghanistan with his acceptance of this prestigious award for peace.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He certainly is, John. And it's one of the things he's already started to do to try to reconcile those two things.

Earlier today when he actually went with the prime minister and had a joint appearance with him, took a question from the foreign side of the press, and they had asked him about the premature award here. They asked about the criticism.

And he went forward and he said, you know, this is not a popularity contest, and that this is -- if he is successful in some of the things that he'd like to do, he would like to bring about, continue a path of prosperity but also a world free of nuclear weapons, to focus on climate change, and mobilize the efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

All of these efforts he said is a part of what America's mission is, and that is to serve its own interests, but also to act as a world leader, a cause for good around the rest of the world. And he said, if I am successful at this, hopefully some of that criticism will subside.

But he is not concerned about it, that this is what he intends to do for the American people and for the world. And quite frankly during the campaign he talked a lot about changing the tone and the approach with world leaders.

They feel very proud that they have done that, that there are many people, you speak to the Norwegians on the street who are happy, who are excited and see a new way forward, a new era of engagement, if you will.

But the president also acknowledging today that this is an award that he says that perhaps other people are better deserving of, and that he still has a lot of work to do. The administration top officials I spoke to say the focus is to put their heads down, to get back to work.

It's one of the reasons why this is only 24 hours. They're not going to stick around and try to glamorize and gloat, if you will. They say they're going to accept the award, he's going to accept it humbly as we see in the remarks that he is going to make just moments away, but also in the way that they behave today.

I want to show you some of the newspapers, some of the headlines here from folks. This one here, "The Hope." This is what a lot of people are talking about, that there are aspirations and inspiration that they get from President Barack Obama.

This one here, "Expecting Humble Obama." They recognized that even he has acknowledged that he was surprised and perhaps surprised and not quite sure if he's the best deserving of this.

And this one, "Bittersweet Visit." It pretty much wraps up what we're going to hear from this president is that, yes, he has goals and he has a lot of work to do. He is humbled and he is honored by this prize, but he acknowledges that this work certainly isn't over -- John.

ROBERTS: Suzanne live for us in Oslo this morning. Suzanne will be sticking with her for the next couple of hours.

We should mention that the program for most of the next half hour or so, with the exception of a speech by the committee chairman, will be musical performances. So we'll add a little context and perspective in here as the program unfolds.

CHETRY: All right, and of course, we'll have pictures as we're looking at and we will be looking at them throughout the time until we hear from the president.

But it will be a real challenge for the president to convince skeptics that he is worthy of the Peace Prize after ordering 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

So joining us once again to talk this morning, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpouror as well as our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley and senior political analyst David Gergen. Thanks to all of you for being with us.

Christiane, let me start with you, because I think it's interesting. As I said, we received some of the embargoed remarks and he does acknowledge quite soon in this delivery the controversy surrounding it, that perhaps he's at the beginning and not the end of his labors on the world stage. How do you think that's being received?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, can I just say, I think it's overdone, this pushing back against his award. He's obviously done something very significant, and that is, after eight year in which the United States was really held in contempt around the world, the United States has now had a new relationship with the rest of the world.

This is what the Nobel Committee has rewarded and has accepted. This is what the polls around the world are showing.

Now, on specific issues of policy had when it comes to peace, it is true that he identified the Middle East peace process as a major goal. Nothing has happened there. There are several more years of his presidency to try to achieve something.

But on this notion of Afghanistan, having covered Afghanistan so much, having talked to the people in Afghanistan, having talked to the U.S. commanders including General McChrystal about it, the notion that he ramped up the war and therefore should not be rewarded for peace is in my view wrong, because if he ramps up the war in order to achieve peace, that is a major, major action, and that's what's at stake right now.

Never has peace been achieved by withdrawing or cutting troops. Never has victory or success been achieved in the history of combat by withdrawing troops. So if they're going to win this war, they have to ramp it up. And I think people need to understand that.

And I think now what has happened is this overcompensation for the fact that he's won this award, and there's so much criticism without really looking at what's at stake here.

ROBERTS: David Gergen, you look like you're itching to jump in here.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALSYT: I agree with you up to a point. I do think the president goes as a representative of the American people, and I think in accepting it with humility, I think that captures the spirit of this country. There's a widespread feeling in America that this should have been later in his term as president, if it were to come at all.

So I think he's been wise to strike this tone of humility, and I think he genuinely is humbled by it.

But beyond that, it's important for all of us to understand that this award was originally given for achievement. That was what Alfred Nobel's intention in his will when he gave the money for this. But -- and up through the Second World War it was largely given for achievement.

But increasingly since the Second World War it has been given for aspiration. It has been given in the sense of the committee hoping that this person or this recipient, this group will go on to achieve great things, to put them in the spotlight and say we have hope for you achieving great things.

AMANPOUR: Let's just take, for instance, Al Gore won the noble peace prize. There's been no major effect on climate change yet. That also is aspirational. Let's take the landmines...

GERGEN: I don't agree with that. I think we've come a long way since then and I think Al Gore has had a lot to do with it.

ROBERTS: Let's let Candy jump in here.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think what you're seeing here is, first of all, two audiences. You have the foreign audience and you have the U.S. audience. I mean, our polling yesterday showed that 19 percent of Americans think he deserves this. It doesn't mean that they don't think he should go over and get it. But he's...

ROBERTS: But 35 percent say, though, that they think... CROWLEY: Well, 35 percent say that eventually he'll deserve it. And then 40-something said, no, he'll never deserve it.

So he's got an audience that is fixated on something other than Oslo, and that is what's going on in their hometown in terms of jobs and the economy, et cetera. So you have that.

But you also have what a lot of people perceive as a political pick, an international political pick, the anti-George Bush. And so a number of people here -- and the critics on the left started after Afghanistan. That's what you're talking about.

Most of the criticism that came before his speech about Afghanistan was about, he doesn't deserve it. This was, oh, they're just hoping he's not George Bush. He hasn't done anything.

And then overseas, of course, they have a lot of hopes, as they do here, but a lot of hopes wrapped up in the president. And I do think it's an aspirational pick. He has called it an aspirational pick.

But I think you go too far on the humility thing. I think when he got it, he was sort of pitch-perfect in the Rose Garden when he talked about it. Now is the time to sort of talk out about peace and sort of the global view.

GERGEN: This speech does that.

ROBERTS: We need to take a brief pause here. We're going to continue out coverage. The president not only acknowledging early on in his speech the fact that he got this award less than a year into his presidency, but also the irony of a president in the midst of two wars accepting the Peace Prize.

We're going to talk with our Barbara Starr. She's in Afghanistan, the central focus of President Obama's efforts there right after the break.

It's coming up on nine minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. You're looking live at Oslo, Norway. We're just about 20 minutes away from President Obama picking up his Nobel Peace prize. Right now they're just listening to the Nobel address -- it is in English, way the way, as Christiane points out, but Thorbjorn Jaglin, who is the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

We're going to have President Obama's acceptance speech for you in its entirety coming up live at the bottom of the hour.

CHETRY: Meanwhile, it's eleven-and-a-half minutes past the hour.

Also new this morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Baghdad meeting with U.S. groups and Iraqi leaders. Gates just wrapped up a two day trip to Afghanistan where he said that the U.S. will maintain a presence there despite plans to begin a troop pullout in July of 2011.

ROBERTS: Crews working to clean up one of the worst oil spills in Alaska's north slope ever. The State Department of Environmental Conservation says about 46,000 gallons of a water-oil mixture spilled before the source of the leak was identified on Monday. BP owns the pipeline. It's believed that ice plugged it up, causing the rupture.

CHETRY: And this high-rise inferno taking place, this happened in Houston -- rather, sorry, Chicago. These flames shooting out of the 36th floor of this high rise in Chicago. One person was killed, at least 11 injured, including two firefighters. Firefighters were able to rescue a man as well as his daughter from the roof.

ROBERTS: Also developing this morning -- another possible case of homegrown extremism. Five Americans arrested in Pakistan, all young men, students who vanished from the D.C. area last month. An Islamic group in Washington said they left behind a farewell video that shows American casualties. They're being investigated for ties to a terror group.

CHETRY: Attorney General Eric Holder checking out security for the biggest terror trial in U.S. history. He toured the federal courthouse just blocks from ground zero where the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as well as four other suspects will stand trial. He also inspected a jail where they will be staying.

The five suspects have been held at the military base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since they were captured.

ROBERTS: Back to our top story now, President Obama in Oslo to accept his Nobel Peace prize. He's in the unusual position of accepting it a week after he ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle zone. Our Barbara Starr is in Kandahar, Afghanistan, today, where troops are waiting for reinforcements and hoping that the end of conflict is near.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, while President Obama is accepting the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, here in Afghanistan President Obama's war goes on.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has now assured the Afghans that the U.S. remains committed to this war. While the White House hopes to begin withdrawing troops in 2011, Secretary Gates is telling the Afghans the U.S. will stay if that's what it takes.

So what about morale? Well, a young soldier told me earlier today morale is good. But the number one issue for the troops, not surprising -- they all want to know when they can go home. He said we support the surge if that's going to get us home faster.

Here on Kandahar air base, another reminder last night, though, that this is a war zone. The base was rocketed. No reported injuries. The soldiers take it in stride -- John, Kiran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: That's Barbara Starr in Afghanistan this morning.

And joining us once again today, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley, and Senior Political analyst David Gergen.

So in this unusual position of being a wartime president accepting the Nobel peace prize, President Obama looked back to some previous speeches -- Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and George C. Marshall.

And perhaps there's one quote from the Marshall Nobel lecture that he was thinking about, when Marshall said, "The maintenance of large armies for an indefinite period is not a practical or a promising basis for policy. We must stand together strongly for these present years, that is in this present situation. But we must, I repeat, we must find another solution. And that's what I wish to discuss this evening."

GERGEN: I think that that ultimately is what President Obama is about. He inherited two wars. He's winding down Iraq as quickly as he can. He's got 100,000 people to get out of Iraq, which is hard. He's had to step up Afghanistan, but he clearly wants to wind it down when he can. And his hope is to move on to an agenda particularly surrounding nuclear arms. And he wants to move to this vision of a nuclear-free world.

And I imagine we're going to hear about that today. There were certainly indications of that from the White House. And by the way, I was in the White House yesterday and they said the importance of this piece, the gravity of this piece, put aside all the controversy about whether he should get it, once you're there, this is an incredibly important speech. It is one for the books. And that really hit him over the last few days and he cleared a lot of his schedule yesterday so he could pour himself into this. I think that's why we just got a copy of it.

CHETRY: As we understand, he was writing much of it himself.

GERGEN: Yes, he was.

CHETRY: And as you said, looking back on other speeches from Nobel Prize winners. Christiane, again to this point that Barbara was talking about and some of the critics have been talking about were how do you nine days ago announce a troop surge, you know, a ramping up of a war, at the same time nine days later receive the peace prize. And you had a chance to actually speak to the general who is hoping to win this war in Afghanistan.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I think to John's point, the fact that President Obama was studying George C. Marshall's speech is very interesting. Because what is Marshall known for, the Marshall plan, which brought peace, stability, democracy and all those good things to Europe and also obviously on to Japan.

This President Obama has said clearly no nation-building. And this is a very controversial point inside Afghanistan because in order to have security, you need stability and you need development. I asked General McChrystal yesterday, he believed and he, of course, would say that he now has the mandate to finish the job. I asked him whether it was worth it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: To those people here and around the world who say that this is not worth it anymore, what do you say?

GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL, COMMANDER OF U.S. FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN: I believe that it is. I believe that as I go around and I see in the face of Afghans what they want for the future, I believe it's worth it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And so, of course, General McChrystal and the others say that unless Afghanistan is stabilized, there will be potentially eternal war there. Unless it's stabilized there's nothing that can be done for Pakistan and also America's security is vitally affected unless it's stabilized. So I think this is a very important point at this moment.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is, and they're not calling it nation-building, but it is nation-building.

CHETRY: Right. The civilian -- the civilian surge.

CROWLEY: If you have to have a stable country in order to leave, then they're going to need water and electricity and a stable government and that's nation-building. I think probably to look at the other side of this, I was fascinating by the Teddy Roosevelt, part of the Teddy Roosevelt speech, where he said, "No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong."

So, sure it's a peace prize, but I think that we will hear from this president, who is under fire at home for being too willing to go along with things, for not being strong enough, I think in this speech they see an opportunity for him to say, and by the way, we're going to stand up where we need to stand up.

ROBERTS: On the point of not being strong enough, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the famous ambassador said, so far the Obama team has shown neither tactical skill nor the strategic firmness needed to move the peace process forward, talking about the Middle East. It can be hoped that the president will seize a moment offered by the Oslo ceremony and give more substance to the Middle East peace initiative. When the former secretary of State says something like that, David, what does it say about what this president is doing regarding this peace initiative? GERGEN: Well, as Zbigniew Brezinsky does speak with a lot of authority. The guy served as national security adviser to President Carter and he's a man of stature in his field.

I don't think this is the moment when the president is going to speak particularly to the Middle East. I think he's much more interested in the moment on nuclear proliferation. And I think he's going to be much concerned about Iran than, for example, than he is about whether -- because there's a stall right now going on with Israel and the Palestinians. It's very hard.

But I'm going to go back to one point. This president I think is fundamental what this president is about. He is about nation- building, but he wants to do the nation-building in America. And what he thinks is what was important about the end of the West Point speech was, he said we've gotten out of whack in our priorities as a country and we've got to get these wars wound down and pay more attention to nation-building at home. And I think he sees these wars as a necessary sacrifice for peace.

I think he has a very different view from Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt -- T.R. was a virile, you know, pugnacious, pressing (ph) kind of guy. And Obama is much more...

CROWLEY: Yes. My only point being that he was accepting a peace award. Everyone was saying, well, you know, you've got peace and it's the same thing.

GERGEN: Exactly.

CROWLEY: He's got to find that balance there because he's under criticism at home for not being -- not saying, hey, we're also going to be tough when we need to be.

CHETRY: Right.

Well, we're going to continue this conversation. Critics and some the usual critics that you would think, some coming from the conservative right but also some unusual critics like from the Dalai Lama, for example. We're going to talk more about that when we come back. And again, we are following live for you from Oslo, Norway, the entire peace prize ceremony.

We'll be back in a moment. Twenty minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: We're back about with the Most News in the Morning. A live look again in Oslo, Norway, where President Obama will accept his Nobel Peace Prize. That's the chairman of the Peace Prize Committee giving his speech this morning. Just about ten minutes away from that ceremony. We'll have President Obama's Nobel lecture for you coming up in its entirety.

And apologies to Zbigniew Brzezinski, to the former national security adviser. There's a factor of too many time zones in too few days for me.

CHETRY: Well, it's 23 minutes past the hour right now, and our Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business." You know one of the big things we've been talking about is the climate change and, of course, the big summit taking place in Copenhagen. You say there's also big money behind the climate talks.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, there's an incredible bottom line (ph) behind these climate talks. You have lobbying on every level from developing countries, lobbying against western countries, to companies and industries lobbying. In fact, the big players in Copenhagen right now are called bingo. The business and industrial nongovernmental organizations.

On the ground in Copenhagen, they're talking about bingo and the bingos, all of these special interests who are working very hard to influence the climate change debate. Just take a look at the lobbyists here in this country -- 2,224 registered lobbyists on climate change. The money spent so far, $300 million. If you look at over the past year or so, the number of companies hiring lobbyists to influence the climate change debate, it is an incredible number that it continues to move higher.

Now, it's usually the big carbon emitters you think of, the Chamber of Commerce, the -- you know, American Manufacturing Association and the like who are big proponents of trying to influence the debate, right? But it's not just them. There's also a big coalition of f companies like Nike, Levi's, Starbucks, who actually are for efficiency standards and a cut back of missions. They want to make sure they're in there helping influence the debate.

Food companies, you've got companies that are in charge of water and power utilities. Everything you can think of. Also, battery operated car manufacturers. So there are literally thousands and thousands of entities out there spending big money to try to influence this debate. And they are spending some major money. After health care in this country, climate change number two for lobby dollars.

CHETRY: Wow. And if that cash for caulkers as you've been talking about crystallizes, and we see more about that, you can imagine how much money there is to be made from some of these companies that specialize in green technologies.

ROMANS: There's money to be made from companies specializing in green technology. There's money to be lost for companies that benefit from the status quo. So there's a lot of influence out there happening.

ROBERTS: Got a "Romans' Numeral" for us this morning?

ROMANS: I do. It's a number. It's two degrees Celsius. And you will be hearing a lot about this in the days and months ahead as we talk about Copenhagen.

CHETRY: We usually go in Fahrenheit. Why are you throwing Celsius at us? ROMANS: Because this is a U.N. number, and this is what the climate change scientists talk about. The whole goal of what's happening in Copenhagen is to limit the climate change to just two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial level, so above, say, 1990. They want to keep the climate change, the global temperature from rising more than two -- above two degrees Celsius they say is absolutely catastrophic.

ROBERTS: Where is it right now?

ROMANS: Right now is at 0.8 -- 0.8 degrees Celsius. So they want to limit this and that's what all this fighting and lobbying is about. It's about two degrees Celsius. That's what it's all about.

ROBERTS: All right. Christine Romans "Minding Your Business."

ROMANS: You're welcome.

ROBERTS: Thanks so much.

CHETRY: And again, we're going to take you back to live pictures right now of the Nobel ceremony as President Obama gets ready to accept the medal from the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. That's coming up in just five minutes. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: We're coming up on half past the hour right now. A live look at President Barack Obama as he waits to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. This is a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. Welcome. And again, we're taking you live to Oslo, Norway, where the president is about to be presented with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

ROBERTS: He'll become just the third sitting U.S. president to receive the honor. Others are Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson. It's a controversial choice, coming just nine days after he announced he's escalating the war in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops.

Right now, Thorbjorn Jagland, he's the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. He's getting ready to present the award to President Obama. Mr. Jagland is just finishing up his speech. He's going to summon the president to the lectern and hand him a diploma and the Peace Prize medal.

A few minutes later, the president is expected to speak. So why don't we just -- we've got our Candy Crowley, David Gergen and Christiane Amanpour with us this morning. Again, you know, some of the issues that we've been talking about this morning, 19 percent of people asked in our recent poll think that the president is deserving of this. Thirty-five percent think that eventually he will earn it. He's just 11 months into his presidency and he's receiving this award, and the fact that he just 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. There are just a lot of things, David, swirling out there.

GERGEN: There sure are. You know, there are members of the White House staff who really fully appreciate that this is awfully early. They could think of another year that they would like to win it, say, perhaps a year, maybe 2012. That might have been a nice year to win this. Don't you think, Candy?

CROWLEY: I think it has a certain ring to it.

GERGEN: There's a ring to the political types in the White House. Yes. But it's -- given where they are, this award does come with moral stature. It does elevate you on the international stage. And I think just as the presidency shows a certain amount of power and influence in the world, winning a Nobel Prize gives you additional stature. So it does arm him in fact, I think as a man of peace and to try to make the argument, as I think he will here, that in order to get peace you sometimes have to fight.

ROBERTS: I think he's about to announce the president here. So, let's listen in.

(APPLAUSE)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHETRY: So we're hearing a little bit of the music again. In a couple of minutes we expect to actually hear from the president and we will bring you back there. But meantime, I'd like to get a little bit of insight from some of the people here on our panel today, including our Christiane Amanpour.

From an international perspective as well, we've talked a lot about the domestic politics of this, the criticism, the questions about whether this was given too soon or "what has he done to deserve it." When we talk about the stature that comes with the peace prize, how does that play out in accomplishing some of our international goals?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think very briefly we've talked about security, we've talked about President Obama said this is not a popularity contest. I'm try not trying to win some kind of beauty pageant. But I think people need to understand that being popular is not just a pageant. It's about creating more stability and security for the United States. It's actually in the U.S. national interest for the United States to be viewed favorably around the world.

So that's one thing in terms of getting allies on board, in terms of being able to wield your policy overseas. I think picking up on what David said, the issue of moral stature. This is something that people are really looking closely at because a lot of the current policy comes with a big P, pragmatism. And many are asking, what about the principle?

Let's go to Iran for instance. The president is being rewarded according to the Nobel of his policy of engaging now rather than isolating, which is what happened in the previous eight years. But in Iran, you have a whole different dynamic. You have a student movement, a popular movement that seeks to be recognized, that human rights seeking to be recognized. And people consider that he hasn't staked out a position on that yet. But he's too focused on trying to get the very, very important nuclear deal but at the expense of some of the human rights and moral, democratic values issues.

In Burma, he's done something different. He's sought to engage the military junta now of Burma. He sent special representatives. But what has he got in return so far?. Again, engagement they hope is better than isolation, but have they got anything? Did they get anything back from the junta in return for starting this engagement?

In Sudan, there is a president who is indicted by the international criminal tribunal, a criminal court. And yet, this President Obama has sent a special envoy to negotiate and engage with the Khartoum regime. So there's people still waiting to see how this is all going to play out. In China, he almost didn't bring up human rights nor did his secretary of state. The Dalai Lama is pretty angry about that. And so all around this moral stature, this playing up American unique values and exceptionalism is yet not a main part of his policy.

GERGEN: Let's wait and see what he says. I think that's what the drama is about the speech. Does he use this as a pivot toward enlarging that agenda?

ROBERTS: But at the same time we talked about what the former national security adviser said about the Middle East, but also this idea that Mahmoud Abbas was looking for a lot of support from the president particularly on the issue settlements. The president did not support him on that, and many people are saying he's basically undercut Abbas and this is not what they expect out of a peace prize winner.

CROWLEY: Remembering back to the campaign when Hillary Clinton during the primary talked about then-candidate Obama and said, you know, he's got a speech. After all the beautiful -- you have this famous line, after all the beautiful words, the sky will open and wonderful things will happen. And this is where the president is. He has begun to implement this policy of extending a hand, people saying, come talk to us. You know, ungrasp your fist, that sort of thing.

We haven't seen what will happen yet. I mean just in terms of foreign policy. And I think that's what you're also seeing in the U.S., not just in the world. OK, once you've said to Iran, we want to engage. If they don't engage, then do we get our allies to come behind us and you know, sanction? I think you're talking so early on that we haven't had time to see whether a new approach to foreign policy is going to work other than in popularity polls in Europe.

CHETRY: David is about to jump...

ROBERTS: David can barely contain himself.

GERGEN: I think it's important to recognize that there has been a change in the atmosphere.

CROWLEY: Yes. Popularity polls. GERGEN: No, no, no.

ROBERTS: And speaking of that, Chinese pianist Lang Lang has just finished his piece. And they're about to announce the president and present him with the medal. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now I call upon the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2009, President Barack Obama, to come forward and receive the gold medal and the diploma.

(APPLAUSE)

ROBERTS: We'll let you know what you're about to hear here. This is an American jazz performer Esperanza Spalding.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHETRY: A couple more minutes until we actually have the president of the United States, Barack Obama, come up and accept the prize. Let's just get a few more bits of insight from our panel.

Christiane, one of the things that you spoke about earlier is this moral authority. And then David and Candy both went to outline as well as you did some of the challenges of the pragmatism versus principle. When you look at some of the prior peace prize winners, I mean, these were people, Doctors without Borders, you take a look at the Dalai Lama who truly, truly had a stance and a fight and a cause.

What is the difference between awarding that prize to people who have done very tireless, hard work on something that they truly, truly believe in versus giving it to a leader of a country who has so many other things to balance besides one issue?

AMANPOUR: Well, look, let's take what the chairman of the Nobel Committee just said in his opening address today, that many people have argued that the prize comes too early, but history can tell us a great deal about lost opportunities. It is now today that we have the opportunity to support President Obama's ideas. And the ideas that Europe and much of the world is banking on are engagement, the ability to have an America which now works with the rest of the world instead of a go it alone.

The whole idea of nuclear-free world, which President Obama has posited was the first president to chair the committee at the security council at the U.N. on a nuclear-free world. The whole climate change initiative. Yes, everybody is now saying that this is inspirational. But they're hoping that what he's laid out does come to fruition.

I think, interestingly, Oslo here has committed now another $110 million for Afghan security forces, in addition to the 120 million they provide every single year there. And just in general the -- we have to watch, as you've been saying. We've been sort of arguing about the human rights thing. It's not a coincidence that so much pragmatism has entered the foreign policy of this presidency at the expense of putting values and human rights at the top. David hopes that he's going to be changed in the speech. GERGEN: I think if he is firm on human rights in the speech that the speech becomes policy and it will -- you'll see a higher emphasis. I want to say, Christiane, my sense is that when Americans voted for Barack Obama a year ago it was not only just about his policies. It was what he personally represented, an African-American stepping forward, someone coming forward. There was a sense of hope. And I think that in giving this prize it's about something larger than policies. It's about something that is aspirational for the world, someone who comes from this minority could rise to the top of the most powerful nation on earth.

(INAUDIBLE)

ROBERTS: When you're a candidate, though, you can project this idea of hope. When you're president you have to take action. Right? You got to stop hoping and take action, right?

CROWLEY: You know, it's no longer a matter of collecting a lot of votes. It's a matter of putting together coalitions. And I think that's some of what we're going see in this speech, a lot of times the president was talking his speech on Afghanistan, we've seen other speeches, particularly his speech on race that we saw during the campaign. But he's very good at walking these lines, whether it's between, you know, principle and pragmatism or between, you know, almost any kind of dicey thing that's come to him.

This is when he tends to shine rhetorically. I'm not sure I go with David at this point that this becomes policy because we heard him talk a lot about human rights during the campaign and realize he wasn't president then. But we haven't seen it -- and the practicality of it in China has, you know, come to the front rather than the human rights aspect of it.

GERGEN: Right. But I want to connect this point. John, it is about action, that's true. But when they gave it to Martin Luther King, it was also about what he stood for, sort of the larger vision that king stood for. And in some ways Barack Obama has been seen around the world as the heir to Martin Luther King.

CHETRY: It's very interesting that you brought that up because in Martin Luther King's speech or Nobel lecture as they call it, he talked about how nonviolence is the true way toward peace. And as we're looking and we're not going to give -- we're going to let the president deliver his speech, but he talks about actually that nonviolent movements don't work toward peace. And he used some of the examples of not stopping Hitler and negotiations not stopping Al Qaeda. So it almost seems like a bit of a paradox.

AMANPOUR: Of course, they do as we saw Mahatma Gandhi, yet he wasn't given the peace prize.

GERGEN: He was not. It was the biggest mistake we've ever made.

AMANPOUR: But look at transformative figures like Nelson Mandela, people like Eddie Wezel (ph), the Holocaust survivor, all of these people -- it's transformative and... ROBERTS: It's time for the lecture.

CHETRY: Here it comes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, Mr. President, the floor is yours to give your Nobel lecture.