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The Nobel committee awarded the prize to Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." The award came at a time when President George W. Bush was planning war on Iraq, and the Nobel committee acknowledged that this played a part in giving the award to Carter at that time. Gunnar Berge, the Nobel committee chairman, said that the award "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current administration has taken."
According to the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Carter ought to have been awarded the Prize as early as 1978, when he successfully mediated a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. The peace agreement between those two nations was probably the high point of Carter's presidency. Thereafter, he experienced several setbacks in his foreign policy, such as the conflict with Iran after the fall of the Shah and a new cold war with the Soviet Union after that country's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. In the following year Carter lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan.
Ever magnanimous, President George W. Bush called Carter to congratulate him on the morning that the award was announced. Carter was asked by the press that morning, if he was concerned about Bush's plans for Iraq, and he replied "I feel very strongly about it, yes," saying that the administration should not act unilaterally against Iraq. But Bush brushed off the criticism and said that his administration was proud that Carter had won the award.
The Nobel Peace Prize, at the time, came with a stipend of $1 million. The Nobel committee referenced much of Carter's other humanitarian work, including fighting tropical diseases like guinea worm and river blindness and his continuing interest in furthering democracy. On the Monday after winning the award, the then 78 year old Carter went to Jamaica to monitor elections there.
His activism did not always win him praise. When he intervened in an escalating dispute between North and South Korea in 1994, he was criticized by President Bill Clinton for getting too chummy with North Korea's dictator.
Carter, thus far, is the only former United States President to win this award. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama all won the award as sitting presidents.