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Challenging tasks await Obama on world stage

WASHINGTON: No President before Barack Obama was born ascended to the Oval Office confronted by the accumulation of seismic challenges awaiting him. Historians grasping for parallels point to Abraham Lincoln taking office as the nation was collapsing into Civil War, or Franklin D. Roosevelt arriving in Washington in the throes of the Great Depression.

The task facing Mr. Obama does not rise to those levels, but that these are the comparisons most often cited sobers even Democrats rejoicing at their return to power. On the shoulders of a 47-year-old first-term Senator, with the power of inspiration yet no real executive experience, now falls the responsibility of prosecuting two wars, protecting the nation from terrorist threat and stitching back a shredded economy.

Given the depth of these issues, Mr. Obama has little choice but to “put your arm around chaos,” in the words of Leon E. Panetta, the former White House chief of staff who has been advising his transition team.

“You better damn well do the tough stuff up front, because if you think you can delay the tough decisions and tiptoe past the graveyard, you’re in for a lot of trouble,” Mr. Panetta said. “Make the decisions that involve pain and sacrifice up front.”

What kind of decision-maker and leader Mr. Obama will be remains unclear even to many of his supporters. Will he be willing to use his political capital and act boldly, or will he move cautiously and risk being paralysed by competing demands from within his own party? His performance under the harsh lights of the campaign trail suggests a figure with remarkable coolness and confidence under enormous pressure, yet one who rarely veers off the methodical path he lays out for himself.

“It leads you to wonder whether passivity is the way he approaches most things,” said John R. Bolton, President Bush’s former Ambassador to the U.N. “It does indicate a style of governance that is extremely laid-back. For all the talk about Bush and cowboy diplomacy, a passive America is not really what they want either.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers said he would not be passive and would move quickly to demonstrate leadership without waiting for the transfer of authority on January 20. He intends to start by naming three co-leaders of his transition team on Wednesday, including John D. Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff; Valerie Jarrett, a longtime Obama adviser; and Pete Rouse, Mr. Obama’s Senate chief of staff.

Mr. Obama may also have a news conference and announce top White House appointees by the end of the week, advisers said. Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, a former Clinton aide and close friend of Mr. Obama, may become White House chief of staff, well-connected Democrats said. Mr. Obama’s advisers say they anticipate the nomination of Secretaries of State and Treasury by Thanksgiving.

Mr. Obama has been conferring with congressional leaders about a possible package of $100 billion for public works, unemployment benefits, winter heating assistance, food stamps and aid to cities and States that could be passed during a lame-duck session in the week of November 17. He has also been talking regularly with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. about the economic environment and hopes to work closely with him during this interim period as Mr. Paulson makes decisions about how to invest the $700 billion given to him by Congress to shore up the financial system.

But there are limits to Mr. Obama’s capacity to act in the short term. The politics of assembling a stimulus package in this transition between administrations could be difficult to overcome as he tries to balance pent-up demand from now-victorious Democrats eager to use their power of the purse with the reality that Mr. Bush still holds the veto pen for 77 more days. In the end, Democrats said, Mr. Obama and congressional leaders would pare their spending plans if they could not get Mr. Bush and Senate Republicans to agree, then come back in January when they have unfettered control.

“If he gets out there too much and gets too enmeshed in policy disputes before he’s inaugurated, when he doesn’t have control of the federal bureaucracy, that could really backfire on him,” said Elaine C. Kamarck, who was the former Vice-President Al Gore’s domestic policy adviser in the 1990s. “It’s a really delicate balance he has to strike.”

Whatever collaboration there may be in the short term, Mr. Obama represents the end of the Bush era in the long term. Yet he will find himself dealing with the Bush legacy for years to come. He promised on the campaign trail to close the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but analysts in both parties expect that to be harder than Mr. Obama imagines. He will inherit a deficit that could approach $1 trillion next year, which could curtail his ambitions, like expanding health care coverage.

As a result, the shift from campaign trail rhetoric to halls-of-governance reality could prove turbulent. And Obama’s soaring speeches have created such a well of anticipation that there is a deep danger of letdown. He talked during the campaign of a “new politics” bringing Republicans and Democrats together. But if he really works with Republicans to find common ground on issues like Iraq, terrorism and climate change, he will risk alienating his liberal base.

“You tend to campaign in black-and-white. You tend to govern in gray,” said Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations who has worked for four Presidents, most recently Mr. Bush. — New York Times News Service

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