Never has an incoming president been confronted by as daunting an array of problems as Barack Obama, the untried former senator from Illinois.
Others have been put to stern test. Abraham Lincoln faced looming civil war when he took office in March 1861. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt had to drag the country out of the Great Depression, an economic crisis worse even than the one Obama must deal with now. But for the 44th President, 2009 will be the year of multitasking. The unfinished business of two wars, and a dislocating economic downturn, are only the first items on his agenda. Around the globe, especially in the Middle East and South Asia, other crises simmer.
Hardly less pressing is the need to tackle the ever more glaring inadequacies of the United States’ health and education systems, and at last to set about reducing the country’s ruinous and unsustainable addiction to imported oil. But even these vast domestic challenges pale beside the global challenges — among them global warming, and the gulf between the world’s rich and poor, that the economic downturn will only widen. In each case, action is essential, and soon.
Multitasking, in short, is putting it mildly. A better metaphor for the incoming Obama is the chess grandmaster as he plays a dozen games at once. And there’s one other complication: All the matches are interconnected. A wrong move on one board might spell disaster on another. Making the stakes even higher is the weight of expectation on our grandmaster’s shoulders. Everyone expects him to win every match, and pretty much without breaking sweat. A Washington Post poll before Christmas found almost 70 percent of Americans to be “optimistic” about Obama’s policies over the next 12 months.
Obama’s voting record in the Senate might have been unequivocally liberal, but his appointments bespeak a pragmatic, nonideological approach to America’s and the world’s problems. He has had the self-confidence to appoint his fiercest competitor for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, and to retain a successful Republican, Robert Gates, as his secretary of defense. His economic team comprises some of the mightiest intellects and reputations in the land. If Obama fails, it will not be through lack of talent at his disposal.
So what precisely awaits in the undoubtedly grim year that lies ahead? The most important change may be the easiest to achieve. The mere fact that Obama is not George W. Bush has already burnished America’s image in the world. His opposition from the outset to the Iraq war, the moderation of his pronouncements, his willingness to talk with Iran and other foes of the US, his multiethnic and multicultural background — all provide him a fund of good will none of his predecessors has enjoyed. Rightly or wrongly, people expect this first black president, the first born to a non-American father, to understand how the rest of the world sees America, and to act accordingly.
Some early steps are already clear. Within days of his inauguration on Jan. 20, Obama is expected to sign a mammoth economic stimulus bill, worth a total $800 billion or more, in tax cuts and new government spending, much of it on infrastructure projects that create jobs and put money in consumers’ pockets. Shortly thereafter, he may announce a firm plan for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. It is likely he will make an early visit to a Muslim country — why not to Indonesia, where he lived as a child? — to symbolize his determination to rebuild America’s broken relations with the Islamic world. By the same token, the term “war on terror” will probably vanish from his administration’s vocabulary. Possibly, he may begin to dismantle the futile, half century-old US embargo against Cuba.
Joe Biden, the vice-president elect, was held to have committed a gaffe during the campaign when he noted that Obama would be “tested” by a foreign crisis within a few months of coming into office — maybe even in those talismanic first 100 days. In fact, the loquacious Biden was merely stating the obvious. The only question is where the crisis will erupt.
One possibility is a major terrorist attack against the US, or a tempting US target abroad. More likely is some new flare-up along the “arc of crisis” that stretches from North Africa through the Middle East and Iran and down into the Indian subcontinent. Scenarios abound; from breakdown in Pakistan to renewed bloody confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians. None looms larger, of course, than a showdown with Iran, arising from either the irretrievable breakdown of diplomatic negotiations over Tehran’s suspected nuclear arms program or, worst of all, an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear installations that plunges the region into chaos.
Two factors magnify the perils. The first is the deepening economic slump, which could easily dislocate already fragile balances, both within countries and between them. Rising unemployment and poverty are not only a threat to internal social stability. As history shows, only too often they lead to war. Reflexively, the world will look to America to resolve a crisis. In 2009, however, the US may have neither the resources nor — given its own economic mess — the will to get involved.
