2009 Nobel Peace Prize committee for a "hideous display of cynical politics". Stuart Rees, director of the Sydney Peace Foundation in Australia, questioned the award. "Perhaps the Nobel organisation wants to give him a magic wand. I think the guy is full of promise, but I don't think the promise has been realised yet particularly in regards the Middle East." In Asia and the Middle East: Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said that Obama was the "appropriate" person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. "His hard work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at
2012 Nobel Peace Prize as well as the fact that what had started as an economic union had really had a pacifying effect. While European leaders greeted the decision, the award tended to be criticized by Eurosceptics including the far-right (such as National Front leader Marine Le Pen) and far-left. Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing UKIP and co-chairman of the anti-EU EFD group within the European Parliament, claimed the decision brought the Nobel Peace Prize "into total disrepute" due to its "insulting" assumption that the EU has prevented conflicts. In a poll conducted in Norway by ResponsAnalyse for the newspaper "Aftenposten", 26% of