Obama's Overseas To-Do List for 2010

As President Obama noted in his Nobel speech, it’s a scary world out there, and Kevin Whitelaw takes a look at some of the things on his foreign-policy to-do list in 2010:

• Pacify Afghanistan to some extent: Now that it’s “undeniably Obama’s war,” Whitelaw writes for NPR, he must “use those extra forces to help reverse the Taliban’s recent gains, make a visible dent in the rising violence and jump-start the training of Afghan security forces.”

• Counter the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea: The US faces an uphill battle getting Russia and China to approve sanctions against both—and finding other good options alone will be tough.
• Reach out to pariah regimes: “Re-establishing relations with Myanmar or longtime enemies like Cuba could go a long way toward setting a new tone for the US on the world stage, but that doesn't mean it’s likely.”

For the full list, and how domestic concerns could shove foreign policy to a back burner, click the link at right. (More President Obama stories.)