Energy

I had breakfast today at the usual table in the usual restaurant with a very smart journalist who works for a large salmon colored newspaper. We both had oatmeal because a guy just can't get enough soluble fiber. 

My friend said that at the moment the most over-used term in Washington is "defining moment." Of course, the reason the phrase-turning classes keep returning to this particular phrase is that they are cockeyed optimists. They keep believing that such a moment will happen and they will begin to understand who Barack Obama is. They don't want to have to grapple with the notion that he has already defined himself. They keep hoping that he is really will emerge from the chrysalis of his learning curve months in the presidency as the glorious butterfly of change everyone hoped he would be in the first place. The fact that there is precious little evidence this is likely to happen doesn't daunt them. They'll stick to their s.o.p. of doing the analysis they want and hoping that reality catches up to them sooner or later.

Personally, I'm getting a little worried. (Actually, I'm kind of perennially worried. Not as bad as my ex-wife who actually believed she was going to be hit by Skylab. But able to nonetheless find the cloud around every silver lining.) For months I have been going around saying this is a new generation of leadership, noting that Obama entered high school after Vietnam and his practice as a lawyer after the fall of the wall (that's the Berlin Wall, for you kids who don't remember). But so far, on key issues he has been acting like he isn't the first of a new breed but that he is actually the last baby boomer.

This may be due to the lack of creativity of some on his team who have ignored Rahm Emmanuel's famous admonition not to let a crisis go to waste and who have failed to carpe the damn diem to make this a transformational moment with regard to finance or health care. (The jury is out on foreign policy and climate.) But whatever the case, as recent polls have shown, the "yes we can" of the campaign seems have just been the prefix to "yes we can keep doing business as usual."

Still, all is not lost. Every day new opportunities arise for the President to have that defining moment and to demonstrate to critics that something resoundingly new is happening.

I was thinking of this last night at the big annual dinner for Conservation International, a terrific organization that has done the math and realized that when it comes to planets we have exactly one. Absent spares, they are focused on doing what we can to keep this one habitable. That was reason enough to show up. But the food was good and it was a great group of people. 

(It attracted a much better bunch than Michele Bachmann's latest effort to teabag America, the anti-health care rally that reputable news organizations said had 10,000 attendees and that Fox News said had 40,000. It says something about Bachmann -- no relation to 70s Canadian rockers Bachman Turner Overdrive except to the extent that we might all hope she soon joins them in obscurity --that at an event co-organized by a Republican Rep. named Steven King and bringing together some of America's most deranged wingnuts that she was the scariest person in attendance.)

Sitting not 20 feet from me at the CI event were Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, actor Harrison Ford and many, many vegetarians. Chu gave the main address and by any traditional Washington standards the remarks were remarkable. On the one hand the speech lacked any effort at soaring rhetoric or even structure for that matter. His delivery was uninspired. The talk came with 30 or 40 often very complex slides. In other words, we got remarks from a Nobel Prize winning scientist who was interested in facts and thoughtful analysis. He was the un-orator and a welcome, refreshing and even urgently needed alternative to the usual DC gloss. The point: the climate crisis is real and that the President is committed to addressing it and that if we harness creativity, science and engineering we can solve the problem. Oh ... and if we don't the Chinese will get there ahead of us and they will be the be neficiaries of the first big tech boom of the 21st Century. 

Listening you thought, "that's what I'm talkin' about!" But then reality sank in when I saw Rep. Edward Markey, co-author of the House climate bill, walk by and all the prognostications of a weak deal on the heels of a cobbled-together face-saver in Copenhagen came rushing into my brain. This is the great issue of our time (you can debate the trajectory of global warming all you want...you can't debate what's happening to the polar regions or the glaciers of the Himalayas). And unless something changes we are going to fumble the ball forward in the hopes that we can pick it up at some point in the future.

Obama could change that. As Al Gore said today, he could go to Copenhagen. Indeed, he should go there. If he could go for the Chicago Olympics ... supporting what's little more than a global marketing scam ... then presumably he can go to show that something like saving the planet is worth the trip and even the risk that things won't all work out so well. Two-thirds of Americans under 30 see this as a critical issue. Only the boomers and older are undecided. The president needs to pick a team. Is he with the next generation or the last one?

Same is true with China and his upcoming Asia trip. On this front, I frankly think he is trending in the right direction. I think that Obama, to paraphrase foreign policy expert Elle Woods, recognizes that Asia is the new Europe. Furthermore, after decades of pundits speculating about this, I think he can make this real with a productive trip to the region this month. 

The key: the turnabout is fair play meeting of the year. After 10 months at least significantly defined by how the Obama Administration is dealing with the banking community, now the president has to go meet with his banker. They have a full agenda: a deal on climate, collaboration on Iran and North Korea, the coordinated soft-landings of our national currencies. Pay more than lip service to the importance of the relationships ... produce real progress on these fronts ... because actions really do speak louder than words ... and he passes another critical test when it comes to proving this administration is about something new.

Two final related points:

At a meeting I was at with a bunch of big institutional investors in Chicago this week, the scenario for world markets that many were most concerned about was that of a failed Treasury auction ... something they felt was more plausible now than at any time in memory. The aftershocks for the global economy would be pretty darn grim. Avoiding this nightmare is perhaps job one in the U.S.-China relationship at the moment.

And on the climate issue ... as on health care ... I am starting to become embarrassed to call myself a centrist. The folks in the middle are among the greatest obstacles to the kind of reform that is really critical to demonstrating it is no longer business as usual in Washington. (After the entire Republican Party, that is.) My only consolation comes from the fact that most of these people are not what I consider to be real centrists.  They are actually "middle-ests", splitting the difference between left and right. True centrists don't take both sides and divide by two, they use every tool at their disposal to advance the national interest, regardless of what labels might be hurled their way. 

In short, we need courageous, centrist, post-Baby Boom leadership ... and absent a defining moment or two in this direction, all the moments that have come before will do the defining. Fortunately, in times like these, potentially defining moments crop up with alarming regularity.

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Today, it's all good news in the world...

Remember back a couple weeks ago when the G-20 leaders agreed to get rid of subsidies on fossil fuels? Well, guess what? So far not much has happened here on that front ... not surprising perhaps since the "commitment" by the G-20 leaders did not include a timeline. But one bold, shining light has emerged that is leading the way for us all. Who should Barack Obama and his fellow statesmen call for advice? Why their old pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because just this past Sunday the Iranians moved to cut back on their subsidies for fuel (and food) in the interest of trying to trim their budget. Admittedly, the money they save will be used to attempt to make a big hole in the ground where Israel is, but since this is Good News Tuesday, let's focus on the upside. Today, Tehran is our good governance pick of the week.

Have you seen those promos for the latest movie by catastrophe specialist Roland Emmerich, 2012? They'd be pretty horrifying even if they did not, as pointed out in Entertainment Weekly, use collapsing twin towers as one of their money effects. But fortunately, it turns out that we don't have to go see the movie in order to help prepare for the doomsday it suggests was predicted by ancient Mayan calendars. According to an AP story yesterday, the Mayans that are still with us say this end of days frenzy is just an over-wrought misinterpretation of the calendars which do note that late in 2012 some unusual astronomical developments will take place. This may, they imply, be worth a visit to the backyard with a telescope but it doesn't warrant hiding in the basement with a year's supply of franks and beans. Or going to see 2012, which according to early reviews is itself such a disaster, it'll have audiences wishing for the real thing before they've finished their popcorn.

What's better than good governance in Iran and the fact that the world's not going to end in three years? How about something that seemed impossible just a few months back: economic recovery? Yup, according to Larry Summers, the president's top economic advisor, in a letter to Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, happy days are near again. Consumer confidence is coming back and the housing market is stabilizing. But, for most Americans, an even more credible source than a senior government official who happens to be one of the world's leading economists has emerged: TV ads. Yep. According to a front-page story in today's New York Times, "While economists and investors study housing starts and gross domestic product predictions to measure economic vibrancy, General Electric, Bank of America and other companies are using commercials to proclaim America's future is bright." And if they say it in a TV ad, you know it's true. Otherwise how do you explain all the ShamWows and that Popeil Pocket Fisherman in your basement?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has reported following talks with Secretary of State Clinton that there is a "good chance" of cutting a deal with Iran on its nukes. He also called the threat of sanctions "counterproductive," revealing a resolute and moving faith in the fundamental decency of mankind ... and especially in the Iranians despite a track record that would and has made lesser nations doubters. State Department spokespeople said that they didn't seek anything from the Russians during the trip, which provides us with more good news since nothing is precisely what they got.

In today's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum, almost certainly their best regular commentator, finally digs deep enough to find the positive spin on our favorite prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. This is important because without Berlusconi, newspapers would be dull grey things ... er, even duller, greyer things. We need a buffo world leader and I suspect we can all agree he's the perfect guy in the perfect place given his special breed of apparently corrupt ludicrousness and the not unimportant fact that Italy is probably the largest country we could trust to such a clown without really dire consequences to the planet. Writes Applebaum, seeking to explain his popularity, "Besides, with Berlusconi as your prime minister, you don't have to take yourself too seriously. You don't have to trouble yourself with geopolitics or the state of the planet, or poverty and failed states. You can stay at home, remain unserious and argue about the latest legal scandal. And maybe that too, is part of the prime minister's appeal."

And in other good news: The five short-range missiles tested by North Korea yesterday were only short-range missiles, while the recent spate of bombings in Pakistan have been tragic they do serve as a useful reminder that our real problems in that neck of the world are not in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Baucus health-care bill doesn't actually fix a single one of the problems it sets out to address according to members of the House of Representatives it may actually get a helpful makeover in conference, Nicolas Sarkozy loves his 23-year-old son enough to advance him for a job running a good chunk of Paris's financial district, and perhaps most upliftingly the founder of Cirque du Soleil returned safely from a trip to outer space today thus guaranteeing the world more of his trailblazing work creating the theatrical equivalent of Muzak. Next up: why not an evening of bad jokes, young scantily clad women, acrobats, plastic surgeons and opera music called "Berlusconi!"

OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images

The speech by China's president, Hu Jintao, to the U.N. pledging to meet "carbon intensity targets" should be a wake-up call to the United States on several levels.

First, it shows that while the United States dithers, China has not only moved ahead in green technology, they have also moved ahead in terms of shaping the global debate about how to reduce carbon emissions and enhance efficient energy use. We can argue about the level of their targets. (They, predictably, are far too low.) We can argue about their methods, their desire to shift responsibility elsewhere or even their sincerity about aggressively pursuing their goals. But we can't argue with the fact that with Hu's comments they edged ahead of the United States in terms of seizing the initiative at this week's climate talks.

Second, in a related vein, it shows that where the United States fails to lead, others are willing to step in. In fact China, whose leaders were visibly discomfited when earlier this year it was suggested that they were now part of the G-2 with the United States, seems to relish both being out front on this issue ... and leaving the U.S. stammering about the problems of having to work with the Congress.

Third, it just shows how out of touch the U.S. Congress is on climate. The scientific world gets it (see today's FT piece on the weight of scientific studies.) The governments of most of the rest of the world's countries get it. But we keep making up excuses as though somehow Mother Nature would slow down out of respect for Senate protocols.  These do-nothings are great at coming up with excuses and with compromises that suck the meaning out of any legislation. But in this case, the consequences are global -- impeding progress in combating a critical threat and, at the same time, dramatically undercutting American prestige.

That China's formulation of "carbon intensity targets" is not the emissions caps that we and the Europeans have been urging on them is of consequence, but it is not central. Their commitment to reducing the output of carbon associated with each dollar of GDP is at least a respectable initial proposal. At least their words and their body language ... not to mention their quarter trillion dollar national investment in green technology ... say they are taking this seriously. They are not simply fiddling while the atmosphere burns (or at least warms up measurably) as are their counterparts on Capitol Hill.

How galling must it be to be U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern, a dedicated, earnest agent of change, a guy who really wants America to lead, who is held back by "realistic" estimates of what Congress will permit? Hopefully, the Chinese action and the efforts of other countries this week will cause the administration to shift strategies. They too should have a proposal on the table and they should push for what they think is needed.  And then, they should go sell that on the Hill. If Congress won't lead, they must.

Fortunately, Congress's primary excuse on this front -- that China will drag its feet -- is now gone. They will no doubt quibble with the Chinese method and intent. But watching from this seat, they will seem mighty small in doing so and many, whose goal was really to cater to special interests like that minority of businesses who are still not taking this seriously, will seem utterly derelict in their duties.

China will need to do much more than Hu will promise this week. But he and his government deserve credit for reminding the U.S. Congress what leadership can be about.

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Senator Charles Grassley, one of the six power brokers featured in the New York Times story today on the inner circle of senators who are shaping health care legislation, may not be one of the three Blue Dog Democrats on the group, but that doesn't stop the Iowa Republican from being pretty dogged when it comes to his own pet issues.

According to today's Congress Daily, the Finance Committee's ranking member has slammed the brakes on the confirmation of Thomas Shannon to be ambassador to Brazil. His reason? He seeks what is euphemistically called a "clarification" of Shannon's confirmation hearing statement that eliminating the tariff on ethanol imports would be "beneficial." Of course, by "clarification" the Senator means a complete reversal slammed down Shannon's gullet by administration higher ups.

In letters to Secretary Clinton and USTR Kirk Grassley wrote:

A clear signal of the President's stance on this issue would decrease the possibility of confusion in America's heartland and in Brazil regarding the ethanol tariff if Mr. Shannon were confirmed as Ambassador to that country."

Since Shannon, most recently U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and by consensus the most talented and successful individual to hold that office in at least two decades, is one of America's very best diplomats he will of course, be far too circumspect to offer Grassley the "clarification" he deserves.

Let me try however. U.S. ethanol tariffs are indefensible on any level, yet another example of the system of agricultural welfare that has burgeoned in the United States thanks to that good old fashioned combination of backroom and checkbook politics that make America great. There is not a single credible analyst of biofuels (which is to say one that is not paid for by or affiliated with American agriculture) who thinks that corn ethanol makes a hint of sense. It is hopelessly inefficient and with every new development regarding next generation biofuels only grows more so. Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, the main target of the tariffs, is produced as much as eight times more efficiently. As such, it offers a cheaper, more abundant, more environmentally friendly alternative to American consumers at a time when one would have thought that concerns about reducing dependence on foreign oil and combating climate change would be at the forefront of our concerns.

But once again, America's electoral system rears its ugly head. So long as presidential campaigns begin in Iowa, Iowans like Grassley will use the system to put the interest of their state's three million citizens and the most vocal special interests within their midst like the corn lobby, ahead of the three hundred million or so of the rest of us. Further, in so doing, Grassley seeks to preserve yet another dimension of America's system of farm protection and subsidies that costs tax payers tens of billions each year, forces food prices higher (according to the likes of Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz) and is the single biggest distortionary factor in the world trading system. I understand why he is doing it. It's just a shame he can. The system allowing individual senators to hold up presidential nominations is regularly abused and needs to be reconsidered.

It is now July and the Obama administration does not have its own ambassador in Brasilia, capital of one the rising powers that is most important to us in the world. The guy who is there now, Bush's appointee Cliff Sobel, is widely regarded by Brazilians (and anyone else who is paying attention) as a joke whereas Shannon is seen as the crème de la crème of the U.S. diplomatic service and is a nominee viewed with great enthusiasm by the Lula administration. The Shannon pick said "Brazil is important."  Grassley's move says "all politics is local." 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out given that Grassley is so important to the prospects for health care reform. Grassley, who is as canny as they come in the Senate, knows the hand he holds and is betting he can get the Obama team to commit to keeping the tariffs as part of the wheeling and dealing associated with health care. I wouldn't bet against him.

As they say around state fair time in Des Moines, "ain't nothing like a corn dog."

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Today Hillary Clinton made a statement in Thailand that the United States would work to create a defensive shield to help protect Gulf allies from a potential Iranian nuclear threat. Her point is that Iran should not think creating nukes will give them a strategic advantage because we will work relentlessly to blunt any edge nukes might provide.

Seems reasonable enough. Not surprisingly though, Clinton's comments landed in Jerusalem like a dud scud. According to Agence France Presse, Israel's Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor responded:

I heard without enthusiasm the American declarations according to which the United States will defend their allies in the event that Iran uses nuclear weapons, as if they were already resigned to such a possibility. This is a mistake. We cannot act now by assuming that Iran will be able to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, but to prevent such a possibility."

I also agree with this view. That's what I like about the Middle East. It's rife with complexities and no issue has fewer than three sides. What I don't like much about the Middle East is when it becomes, as it often does, that magical fantasy land where passions can be applied to fantasies to produce facts ... or where the insupportable is often the unshakable foundation of absolute certitude. (Which explains a number of religious developments in the region ... but I will gingerly sidestep that discussion for now.)

My recent post on shifting attitudes in Israel and the United States regarding the relationship between the two countries produced among those commenting on it a host of really interesting comments from all over the spectrum ... and some of the nasty/loony stuff we could all do without. 

Of course, item number one in this latter category is racism or prejudice of any sort against any group. Examples of this were visible in a number of the comments, sometimes boldly, sometimes insidiously. The big winner in the makes-ya-wanna-barf contest came from a guy named "briand" who, in reference to a rather overheated pro-Israeli post by AllanGreen, wrote, "If this is parody, kudos! I think the thing I'll miss the most about you Jews is your sense of humor. Not so much the apartheid/lebensraum mentality though." Scroll on through the comments ... there's lots of hatred there, in and among some fairly thoughtful arguments for one side or another.  

Another commenting technique that drives me up a wall is imputing views to me (for whatever reason) that I don't actually hold. For example: I'm no fan of the settlements, think they ought to be dismantled, am not a Zionist, don't support the views of the Likud, and based on his track record to date am no Bibi fan. I also don't think that taking a tough stand against the Iranian nuclear program implies the need to attack and lay waste to Iran. Rather, we need an international program of inspections and enforcement that explicitly asserts the right to use force to compel compliance and offers a multilateral guarantee of providing that force. (Not just in the case of Iran, by the way, but in the case of all future signatories of the new NPT we will start negotiating next year ... an NPT that should offer the framework within which the deal with Iran ought to be included.) 

Another aggravating approach which often undercuts otherwise reasonable arguments is making insupportable assertions. For example, one reader argued that Israel had Iran and Ahmadinejad all wrong, that the Iranian president's comments about destroying Israel were really a deliberate, unfair misquoting of him and that by extension; Israel had nothing to fear from Tehran. Really? Aren't we forgetting 30 years of official pronouncements or the guy who chants "death to Israel" at afternoon prayers? I think it was the same reader who argued another reason to chill out about any potential Iranian threat was that Iran has not attacked anyone in 250 years. This overlooked, as another reader pointed out, the fact that the country has for decades been the world's leading state sponsor of terror...which ought to count for something.    

In this vein, one of the most popular insupportable assertions is that somehow solving the settlements problem or even the larger Israel-Palestinian problem will in turn solve or contribute greatly to solutions for all our other problems in the Middle East -- this despite the fact that many of the biggest problems in the region antedate the founding of Israel by a number of centuries.

In the interest of dispelling this misconception, here, off the top of my head, are 15 major problems in the Middle East that would not be solved by solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute:

1. The Iranian nuclear program
2. The regional arms race that may be triggered by the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program
3. The Saudi succession problem
4. The problems associated with getting Shias, Sunnis and Kurds to get along in Iraq
5. The problems associated with possible Kurdish succession from Iraq and Turkey
6. The Egyptian succession problem
7. The battle between moderates and hard-liners in Iran
8. Our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and its economic, political and environmental consequences
9. The efforts of Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists to assert their influence in Afghanistan
10. The efforts of Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists to assert their influence in Pakistan
11.  Anti-U.S. and anti-Western terrorism not associated with Israel but with the promotion and expansion of Western cultural values and perceived global inequalities
12. The ability of the Palestinians to form a stable, working state with functioning political processes
13. The historic competition for resources in the region including, increasingly, water
14. The conflict between Hezbollah and pro-Western political groups to gain a foothold in Lebanon
15. Israel's historical tensions with Syria, Iran, and virtually every other major Arab state

This doesn't include related issues like the tensions between extremist or tribal Islamic groups with roots in the region and Russia, China, and other bordering countries. Perhaps you have others, feel free to add. (Just try to restrain yourself if you feel the impulse to make a comment that uses as its primary source The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Dismantle the settlements. Create two states. Create an internationally monitored buffer between those states. Let billions in aid flow in to help relieve the plight of the Palestinians. Please, do all these things. They are all long overdue. But know this: They may remove an irritant, they may remove an argument from extremists, they may put U.S. relations on a more even footing with other countries in the region. But they won't make the Middle East appreciably less dangerous or difficult and I guarantee you, they won't stop efforts by the countries of the region to continue to scapegoat, confront and battle Israel on countless other pretexts.

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I was one of those kids who grew up in the '60s mesmerized by the space program. I actually, geekily, wrote NASA regularly requesting pictures of astronauts and sending in my own ideas for spacecraft, mission patches and the like. They would reply with thick envelopes full of press releases and eight by tens of my astronaut heroes, glossy proof that in our times anything was possible.

I watched the moon landing from summer camp where my store of newspaper clippings on space shots was the focus of considerable commentary (and not in a good way...leading to plenty of taunting, hazing, and one night alone on a tiny mosquito infested island in the middle of our lake). We had a small black and white television in the lodge up there in Readfield, Maine and we watched the ghostly images of Neil Armstrong leaping off the lunar lander ("yes...yes...the Lunar Excursion Module...the L.E.M...." cries out the little geek with black-framed glasses sitting as close as possible to the screen fully aware that his outburst will lead to the short-sheeting of his bed). It was not just moving for me, it was life defining. It was evidence that ours was an era apart and it was a harbinger of more amazing things to come. We didn't need Harry Potter. We had real magic happening before our eyes.

Sadly, in terms of the space program, that day 40 years ago this week was a high water mark emotionally if not technologically and in the years since we seem to have lost our sense of adventure and our connection to the ancient human impulse to constantly explore as far as possible beyond the limits of our knowledge. Our decision not to build as we might have on the achievements of the Apollo program is to me a sign we suffered a failure of national imagination.

During the presidential campaign last year, there was a conscious effort to draw analogies between John Kennedy, the symbolic father of the space program, and Barack Obama. There was a clear sense that association with the Kennedys would offer Obama a "right stuff" infusion. Personally, I found the whole business pretty distasteful, in part because I feel that Kennedy is almost certainly the most over-rated American political leader of the 20th Century and that there is an unsavory dimension to his history and that of his family that neither reflects well on them, nor on those who choose to overlook it. I also don't much buy into that greatness by association formula that is so popular within spin community.

That said, here we are six months into the Obama administration and there are strong indications that the president did not take the analogies lightly, that he is in a real way aspiring to the Kennedy example. Indeed, despite the inevitable grappling with both the learning curve and the curve balls thrown by circumstance, I think it is possible to argue that Barack Obama more than any recent president has sought to set goals that if achieved would have massive, global and ennobling consequences.

In fact, in a few key areas at least the President of the United States has broken free of the gravitational pull of Washington incrementalism and he already has us embarked on not one but perhaps as many as three different moonshots, national initiatives of importance comparable to those we cheered when back when British Open runner-up Tom Watson was still young.

One of these is closely related to the dark underside of the space program, the nuclear arms race that had us all as kids cowering in our school hallways beneath the winter coats that were supposed to protect us from thermonuclear fireballs. It is Obama's pledge, made in Prague, to seek the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons programs that resonates most like Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the moon in ten years. It seems impossible. It is redolent with hope. It would mark a breakthrough in the history of human civilization. In fact, it would mark multiple breakthroughs including both advancing the cause of peace and security worldwide and moving us toward more effective next generation global governance mechanisms. In this latter case, the breakthrough would come because there is no way to achieve Obama's goal without a successor to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that guarantees the international community the right to inspect at will and the right to use all means including force to ensure compliance.   

Another existential threat, climate change, is the target of another of Obama's moonshots. He has powerfully articulated his belief that global warming and continued reliance on fossil fuels exposes the United States and the world to manifold risks. Finally, the United States is seeking to play a leadership role in crafting an international agreement to reduce green house gas emissions. At the same time, the U.S. is investing unprecedented sums in cultivating alternative energy forms and finding ways to capture and harmlessly store carbon. Success on this front could well be the defining achievement of the current generation of world leaders. (Interesting what a vitally important role the Department of Energy, long the black hole of the U.S. bureaucracy, plays in two of these signature Obama initiatives.)

A third moonshot is the president's commitment to fix America's broken health care system. While this may seem prosaic and hardly as elevating as launching men into space or ending the threat of a nuclear or climatic end to human life on earth, nothing less than the role of the United States as a leading nation depends on our ability to get our arms around the massive underfunded liability we face in retirement health care. At the same time, when the last major economy on earth finally agrees with all the other developed nations that healthcare is a fundamental human right, it will represent a watershed in our view of the nature and role of governments. And the costs associated with this particular challenge will almost certainly exceed those associated with the space program...by at least 250 times. (The roughly 180 billion 2009 dollars it cost to put a man on the moon is roughly the same as was allocated for the AIG bailout. So by that measure, already the Obama Administration has plenty more moonshots to its credit.)

Each of these objectives is worthy and each is a massive undertaking. Any administration that accomplished one would secure its place in history. Throw in a few other largish objectives -- like achieving peace in the greater Middle East -- and there's no denying that America's long drought of vision and ambitions on a grand scale is over. We're no longer in the school uniforms or "don't ask, don't tell" territory any more, Toto. (Of course, it's worth remembering that we put a man on the moon at the same time as we fought the war in Vietnam, launched the "Great Society", implemented the Civil Rights Act of 1964...all effectively under the remarkable and under-appreciated leadership of Lyndon Johnson.)

But of course, the reason that today we are seeing replay after replay of Kennedy's pledge to put a man on the moon in a decade is because we actually achieved the goal. As of now, all three of Obama's moonshots seem even more unlikely to be achieved than did putting a human on a satellite of earth 240,000 miles away. But for the moment, it's worth celebrating the fact that we are thinking big again, that we are still game for attempting the worthy but seemingly impossible which is why I am declaring today a cynicism free national holiday in honor of the imagination, chutzpah, and hard work that made the achievement of July 21, 1969 possible. I even feel my imagination stirring a bit. But rest assured, I am not planning on building a model spent nuclear fuel disposal facility in my bedroom or sending fan mail to climate envoy Todd Stern. The last thing I need is for my wife to start short-sheeting our bed. 

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Because it is downright silly to evaluate a president after only 100 days -- especially on his performance in an area as complex and wide-ranging as foreign policy -- and because it is doubly unfair to evaluate someone by arbitrary metrics, let's try another approach. Let’s establish a scale by which we can judge the President after four years in office, one full term. This way he can know in advance how he's going to be graded (we’re fairly confident he is a loyal FP reader), and we can discuss his presidential achievements and slip ups in foreign policy in more meaningful terms.

Of course, with a couple hundred countries and dozens of cross-cutting issue areas to consider, it would be impossible to list every important metric in one blog posting....even given my tendency toward, um, full-figured postings. So, let me pick ten and you can add others.

1. Iraq

This is the issue that more than any other in international relations differentiated Obama from his opponents during the 2008 election cycle. And with this issue, like so many others, the initial metric is going to be: does he leave it better than he found it? In this case, this will mean living up to his promise to withdraw most American troops...while at the same time ensuring that Iraq doesn't backslide into chaos endangering the region. (It'll be interesting to see whether, if confronted with the possibility of disorder in Iraq, Obama and Americans in general are willing to accept a strongman who puts a lid on the country even if that means democracy is not exactly robust. You know, like Saddam.) It is also essential that problems within Iraq do not spill over into other countries be they renewed stirrings of a desire for an independent Kurdistan or tensions associated with Shiite-Sunni rivalry. By this metric, the most likely outcome -- messy, below optimal democracy, reasonable stability, moderate violence, and no need for more than say, 50,000 U.S. troops -- would be seen as a victory.

2. Iran

Right now the relationship is strained -- which is a polite way of saying we've been at each other's throats for three decades -- but there is nonetheless hope for a dialogue that produces a somewhat enhanced relationship and a tolerable outcome on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Iranian regional aspirations, especially as expressed through the actions of its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, are also worrisome. Live up to the hopes by establishing some kind of on-going, even sporadic dialogue and a peaceful nuclear program with ironclad inspection and enforcement mechanisms that include disposing of waste elsewhere, probably in Russia, would earn a pretty good grade. Progress by covertly and overtly U.S.-backed Iranian reformers producing a chance at a bigger diplomatic opening and more control of Hezbollah's meddling outside Iran would be even better. Triggering and allowing a nuclear arms race in the region is an automatic F. Working this all out through effective multilateral cooperation is a key to a passing grade.

3. AfPak

I'm a pessimist about our prospects here so frankly, I would consider it a passing grade if we don't end up with more troops there than we have right now and if the whole of Pakistan is not being run by fundamentalists. Losing more of Pakistan or Afghanistan to the Taliban, al Qaeda, or other extremists or having the two countries serve as a base for another attack on India or elsewhere, would bring the overall grade down a lot. This is Obama's war. Colin Powell's "you break it, you own it" dictum applies. Capture Osama you get an automatic A here, though more importantly, the president probably also gets an automatic reelection. Actually achieve military success and shore up democracy and attitudes toward America in Pakistan and not only does Obama get an A but Richard Holbrooke gets a Nobel Prize and probably his own talk show or cabinet post, whichever he would prefer.  (Please note: I am a very big Holbrooke fan. If he can't help here, no one can.)

4. Israel-Palestine

This is an area in which most American presidents are happy to keep the burners set to simmer. But few American presidents have raised expectations of better relations with the Muslim world and this is the symbolic issue for the entire region. Some concrete progress must therefore be made for his regional policy to be considered a success. A Syria deal seems to me the most likely outcome, but the successful development and introduction to you should forgive the expression, a roadmap to a two-state solution is a sure-fire way to push up the overall grade almost regardless of what happens elsewhere. Engineer this and Obama gets the Nobel Prize (sorry George Mitchell, maybe you can finally become baseball commissioner.)

5. China

Ok, now we have a G2, what are we going to do with it? This is an area where Obama can blaze a real trail in 21st Century foreign policy, forging a doctrine of interdependence with a critical partner that is also a likely rival on key issues. Given that no progress can be expected on arms control, economic recovery, combating climate change, managing global trade, and dealing with hotspots from Iran to North Korea without Sino-U.S. cooperation...and that more progress can be made than may be expected if we forge a new kind of really substantive working partnership....this is an issue that is not in the headlines daily that ought to be front of mind for the President nonetheless. This is really where an Obama doctrine outlining how the U.S. now must learn to work with countries with which we have major differences will take its most meaningful shape. Let its long-term development being overtaken by successive crises of the hour and again, automatic F.

6. The Atlantic Alliance

Eight-five cents of every defense dollar on earth is spent within the Atlantic Alliance. If the United States is to slip the bonds of being the world's sheriff, the only way to do it is to revitalize this alliance and to develop practical guidelines for out-of-theater actions where support is not as anemic as it has been recently for our AfPak efforts. Further, these relationships are the foundations of America's foreign policy historically and these countries are on many issues our most natural allies. The United States cannot achieve multilateral success without restoring and maintaining a partnership here at a level that transcends the grievous damage done during the past eight years. 

7. Reinventing the Multilateral System

Everything needs to be fixed or newly created...the IMF, the World Bank, regional banks, global financial regulations more generally, the non-proliferation regime, the WTO, the UN Security Council, a global environmental organization-and it needs to be done with a new core group leading the way. This includes the United States, Japan, the EU and the BRICs.  Find a way to strengthen these organizations, fund them, create structures that reflect the new emerging global power structure, move beyond the toothlessness of previous global regimes and Obama may do more good than being successful in any of the other areas cited here. Do little and it will make it much harder for the United States to leverage its constrained resources into the kind formula for international leadership that the century will demand.

8. Combating Climate Change

While mentioned above, failing to set a price for carbon or to take other crucial steps to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels could cast the administration in a very bad light in the eyes of future generations (those with gills and webbed-feet). While I overstate likely outcomes, we are in a period which much produce progress or damage may well be done that could have very serious security consequences for us even beyond implying continuing dependence on dangerous and unstable oil-producing regimes. There are plenty of metrics here but the ultimate one is simple: implement a carbon pricing mechanism by the end of these four years or you get another automatic F.

9. Quarterbacking the Global Economic Recovery (This Includes Protecting the Well-Springs of Domestic Economic Strength -- Notably the Dollar)

This is the issue on the minds of everyone right now and if the crisis endures well into 2010 it is already likely that mid-term elections will make it harder for the President to achieve other goals here. Fail to engineer a substantial recovery by 2012 and the administration will be unable to get the extension from the professor that it inevitably will argue it needs to achieve all the goals set out above. Get 'er done and not only does the president get a high overall grade, but he gets that automatic four year extension on all his other work -- a four year extension. Be seen as responsible for permanently weakening the dollar and driving up the price of borrowing for a debt-addicted United States, automatic F.

10. Manage the Unexpected and Yet Defining Crisis We Can Hardly Predict

It will come...perhaps several will come...or they will involve hostages or terrorist attacks or a coup or an unexpected natural disaster and as the previous occupant of the Oval Office (who achieved a very unusual F for his eight years of foreign policy mismanagement, bad study habits, and violation of the U.S. constitution) will tell you, all your progress can be undone in the public's eye in an instant. This is a critical part of being president and a key here is setting up a team and a process that can handle the unexpected. Has he done this? Well, he certainly has taken promising steps in that direction.

Extra-Credit

Several areas may be important in a real way, but they probably won't rise to the level of the ten cited above in shaping his final grade. These include keeping a lid on Mexico and the Quartersphere, the part of the hemisphere we will really be focusing on re: drugs, stability, and immigration, the regional issues that touch our borders.  Also: Many of the thorniest foreign policy problems we face can be found in Africa (this may be where the unexpected crises come from although my money is on traditional locations or Central Asia). Massive war, genocide or humanitarian disaster(s) in Africa on Obama's watch may damage his grade. Sadly, it only ever takes maintaining the unhappy status quo there for American presidents not to be graded on their performance there at all. Bush probably did better there than most recent presidents and it didn't help his grade one bit. Finally, if the world continues to love us...or the president...or his powerful secret weapon, Michelle...which is the area in which perhaps the most progress has been made in the first three months, he'll also get extra credit.

So, that's my take. Now start studying Mr. President. There will be a test tomorrow. And every day you remain in office.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In March, for the third month in a row, more cars were sold in China than in the United States. Admittedly, there are many more Chinese. But this is a sign of a permanent change in the structure of the global auto industry that even an army of car czars will not be able to reverse. Even if we had car czars that actually knew something about the industry. Even if the American auto industry did not think the height of innovation was the reintroduction of a 1960s muscle car for the Vin Diesel crowd like the new(ish) Camaro. (Although even tuners prefer to nitro boost foreign-made vehicles as well illustrated in this week's gearhead superhit, the subtle and heart-breakingly beautiful, Fast and Furious.) 

Last week, in the lead story in the New York Times, we also saw that China was actually going to have something like twice as many electric cars as the United States in the next couple years and that the country was poised to lead in electric car technology. While we actually could be competitive on the technology front, the problem we have with electric cars runs deeper. American car owners want longer range, faster, more powerful vehicles than the Chinese (and consumers in many other countries). Sure, I'll take your damn green car, we say helpfully, but only if it is the same as the gas-guzzling, road-rocket I'm used to. Oh, and please be sure it has three rows of seats, a beer cooler in the glove compartment and twin flat panel screens so the kiddies don't have to watch the same episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants (because we don't want them fighting over which life lesson they will gather from their favorite gay underwater kitchen implement).

In other words, our consumers don't look like the consumers in the rest of the world. That's been a challenge to American car makers for some time (the appetite of international consumers for smaller cars led to the rise of the Japanese, European, and later Korean auto industries at the expense of American manufacturers). But with the rise of China and India and other emerging car markets and the more willing embrace of greener standards in everything by Europeans, our consumers are sending a market signal to car makers in the United States that is just completely out of whack with much of the rest of the planet. 

Some of that is, of course, due to the success car manufacturers, oil companies and others have had in keeping U.S. mileage standards artificially low and in dragging their feet on efficiency. Some of it may be due to the same auto manufacturers' ability to persuade American men that cars are somehow direct extensions of their penises. (Oddly, I don't know that the reputation of French lovers or other Latin lovers has suffered because they drove Renaults or Fiats...even if it should have. In fact, I know for a fact that the very handsome and irresistible editor of Foreign Policy drives a Smart car that looks like a toaster on a roller skate and yet, still the legions of policy groupies gather each day outside the FP headquarters just to catch a glimpse of him.) But part of it is that American consumers are spoiled and have gigantic rear-ends that don't fit in little tiny car seats. The Obama administration can help to change this (the auto innovation and buying habits parts) with new standards and with incentives for car makers and car buyers to invest in more efficient cars going forward. U.S. consumers will also have a role to play in all this too, of course...they will have to respond to the incentives. (As for the rear ends, all of you now: clench...maintain...release...clench...maintain...release.) But the cultural shift we need can't just stop there. For one thing, it might be helpful if U.S. politicians stopped referring to the Big Three as "the U.S. auto industry," since there are hundreds of thousands of Americans employed by great companies that contribute to American growth like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Mercedes, and BMW. And who knows, if we took that step, we might actually be a step closer to tuning out the idiot-populism currently clouding this issue such as that by people like noted auto industry economist John Rich (of country music's only economically titled duo Big and Rich). Writes Rich in his current hit "Shuttin' Detroit Down"...

Cause in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down,
While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town.
DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground.
Yeah while they're living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,
Here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down."

Admittedly, this is poetry. Neither Shakespeare nor later day innovators like Bukowski never dared experiment with anything quite so incomprehensibly moving as "DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground." But the song does have so many flaws you couldn't have hid them all under Carrie Underwood's gigantic dress at last Sunday's Academy of Country Music Awards. Not the least of them being that a.) as noted earlier many of the auto companies in America are neither the "big three" nor are they doing anywhere as badly as the big three and, oh yes, b.) D.C. is actually bailing out Detroit, too. (Although it's still a horse race to see which bailout packages are actually less successful. I'm splitting my bet. We'll waste more money on Wall Street but dollar for dollar we'll be less successful in Detroit.)

Because in the end, we also need to recognize, adjust to and respond with creativity and innovation to the fact that there are secular trends afoot that make it increasingly unlikely that so-called American brands will ever dominate worldwide as they once did. Even if we do reduce the size of those ginormous tushies.  

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images