Some thoughts to start the week:

-If it takes 90,000 documents to tell you that the war in Afghanistan is not going well, that the Pakistani government is not a reliable ally or that many American troops are frustrated with the situation on the ground, then you haven't been paying attention.

-If the release of the Wikileaks archive had come during the Bush administration, Barack Obama would have been the first person out there hailing Wikileaks for their contribution to America's national security...instead of condemning the organization as the White House did over the weekend.

That said, while there was little that was revelatory in the Wikileaks archive, the appearance of the archive marks what may someday be seen as an important watershed. When President Obama took office, Afghanistan was Bush's war. When President Obama released his new strategy and redoubled our troop presence there, it became his war...but it was still argued that he was cleaning up Bush's mess. Now, after almost half a term in office, not only is this Obama's war...but it is increasingly hard to see it as anything but an ugly, deepening mistake.

The release of this information gives a feeling and a tone that the sparse coverage we have had of the war has been lacking. More than anything, it gives Afghanistan the actual feel of Vietnam. Not only are the goals unachievable but our partners are corrupt and our government's representations of what is happening in Afghanistan are often laced with deceptions, partial truths and self-serving spin.

This is the beginning of the end for this failed venture. Even the President's most ardent supporters will peel away from him on this with increasing speed. He will focus on the exit with increasing urgency. And it will be very interesting to see how the President's new man on the scene, General Petraeus, responds to the policy shifts to come.

In the end, it's all a race between the Afghanisation of this conflict and its Vietnamization. Can we hand it off before it decays further, producing collateral damage that will include the political future of this president?

-It is time for Al Gore to step to the back of the bus. Gore and the other usual suspects in the push for climate legislation have failed. That's not to say they didn't face strong opposition. It's to say that after having lost repeatedly to that opposition it is time for them to step aside and let new leaders present new ideas. Cap and trade is dead. The green movement has gotten the politics wrong. A new approach combining bi-partisan legislation driven by economic and energy security concerns with an emphasis on self-financing initiatives and leveraging private and foreign investment is key. But so too is going to be using regulation as an effective driver and working hard to advance policies at the state level where much of the real innovation in the U.S. is taking place.

-Isn't China's timing of its announcement to move toward a carbon trading system in the next several years fascinating? It comes as a stark counterpoint to America's bumbling on this. It sends a message that China gets it and that we don't. And it's no accident. They know what they are doing and they knew how their decision would be received in the context of the flame out of climate and energy legislation on the Hill. Their decision sent two important messages...

-First, China has a sense of urgency on these issues. We don't. Why? It could be one of the most important questions in the world right now.

-Second, for all the talk -- by the Chinese as well as outside observers -- that they are not ready to lead on the international stage, they're doing it. On climate here and on climate during international negotiations, on currency adjustment, on economic reform, on Iran, on North Korea, they have led or been hugely effective behind the scenes. Increasingly, reports come out of bilateral and multilateral international sessions that the Chinese have been impressive and have driven the discussions-sometimes through advancing their ideas, often by simply going slow and knowing the world can't go faster than they are willing to. They are proving to be the canniest diplomatic players on the international stage at the moment. You may not love everything they're doing, but you have got to admire their effectiveness.

Is It Too Early to Call the Karzai Visit a Failure?

No. Especially after it was upstaged by General McChrystal's televised declaration that we're getting nowhere in Afghanistan. But the fact that the media has reacted to the whole carefully orchestrated exercise as though it were either a) a charade (see Maureen Dowd yesterday or Helene Cooper's excellent article in today's New York Times) or b) not happening (see the fact that the story didn't even make the front page of Friday's Times) is really a secondary problem for those with the unenviable task of guiding Obama's benighted AfPak policy. 

The real measure of success of the effort is going to come in the U.S. Congress when it votes on the supplemental appropriation to support the increasingly unpopular conflict. If they vote the money, then all this lying through the gritted teeth of U.S. and Afghan politicians about how well everything is going and everyone is getting along will have bought some time at least. If they don't vote it, vote less or make the process really painful for the president then not only will all this posturing seem to have been pointless but Obama is going to have to face up to the possibility that not only is the war going to end badly (as almost seems inevitable) it's going to end for the United States a lot sooner than he, Karzai or anyone involved wants it to. 

That said, the fact that both U.S. and Afghan officials believe it will take a decade of active U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to prepare for a real security handover á la Iraq suggests just how unlikely a real U.S. success in Afghanistan is. Because if the Congress is choking on the money this year (and Speaker Pelosi has warned more than one visitor to her office that passing the supplemental could be "tougher than health care") imagine how much worse it will get in the run up to 2012. Which in the end means the current visit is actually serving a useful purpose, preparing all involved for the bald-faced dissembling that will be required to put a good face on this mess when we head for the door.

Is the Hot New Trend Divided Government?

With the election of the Doublemint Twins in the U.K. after an election that didn't produce a majority winner, the voters of the countries that were once seen as the world's top powers seem to be sending a message (advertently or otherwise) that at a moment of great crisis, they're perfectly happy letting someone else take the lead -- because in country after country election results or projections seem to be making it tougher for leaders to get anything done. 

In Germany, the recent election bodes ill for Angela Merkel's party. Japanese politics are just a hopeless mess. The United States seems to be headed for an election which produces a much more evenly divided Congress. France's president seems to currently have the support of only about a third of the French people. Admittedly, the confusion among voters only mirrors that among the leaders but it doesn't bode well for swift or bold decision-making within the G8 countries ... and may offer an opening to countries, like China, that aren't burdened with the complexities and headaches associated with democracy.

And while we're on the subject of the Brits, all credit to them for being presented with a confounding (if not entirely unexpected) election result and within days not only piecing together an inter-party deal but actually putting together and announcing an entire coalition cabinet.  It's one thing they do so well that Americans, accustomed to agonizingly long cabinet nominating and approval processes, watch with envy. At least this one does. And since this one is also a bit of a National Security Council historian, he was pleased to see the Cameron government launch the process to set up an equivalent body in Britain. It's a bit of a trend worldwide recently. The question is could we in the United States be using ours better while others are so inclined to imitate it? 

Does the European Economic Crisis Spell Trouble for Alternative Energy Advocates?

It has been a bad year for the European model of coping with the climate crisis. First, in the run up to Copenhagen, we saw the preferred European approach of moving toward a global cap and trade system falter. The Chinese and Indian idea of "target and regulate" (meaning they set their own national targets, don't commit to global hard caps and use regulation and whatever tools they saw fit to achieve those goals) gained traction and as it did, so too did the center of gravity for global leadership on these issues shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic. 

Now, with Europe's economies battered by the markets and burdened by debt, what will become of the rich incentives that have made the growth of alternative energy in Europe possible? Here's the answer: they're going to have to be cut back over the next several years, particularly in countries like Spain where they are especially expensive and debts are especially high. Further, since the European commitment to combating global warming is not likely to diminish, expect more of focus on regulations, taxes, surcharges and penalties (which actually produce revenues for the government) and less on incentives, grants and other costly goodies.  And just as the Europeans get this message, expect a similar one here in the U.S. and in places like Japan.  This in turn will leave the Chinese who are sitting on a $2.4 billion piggybank and an equally large reservoir of political will to lead in an ever better position to make the big leap from memories of a red revolution at home to leading a green one worldwide.

Who's in Charge on Climate Legislation?

This week saw the launch of Senators Kerry and Lieberman's long awaited climate legislation.  It also saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid express his view that such a bill might be difficult to pass this year and that perhaps it would make sense to focus on an "energy only" initiative that might include a Renewable Energy Standard, some offshore provisions and a few other elements more popular with a larger majority of Senate members. His saying this literally hours before the Kerry Lieberman launch suggests a bit of a split at the top of the Democratic congressional leadership on this...the kind of thing that might have been better worked out behind closed doors. Who's in charge here? If the White House is committed to this kind of legislation passing this year -- and it may be much harder to pass after the November elections if the Republicans make big gains -- why aren't they taking the lead on shaping proposals and ensuring that their team on the Hill is unified behind them? Admittedly, this has not been the way things have worked on health care or financial services reform but, perhaps the lessons of those experiences suggest a new approach might be in order.

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.

Read on

Despite a growing desire on my part to avoid the cage-match side of blogging, it is hard not to respond to Christian Brose's post "What is David Rothkopf smoking?" Brose seems to have, in President Obama's words, become all "wee-wee'd up" over my article in Sunday's Washington Post. I respond, of course, as a public service because so much of what he said provides a useful insight into how far we have come since the days of the Bush administration and how desperate Bush apologists are to find a way to suggest that their man and the policies they promoted were not actually the nadir of American foreign policy.

I should note however, that I also do this reluctantly because I think Brose is a pretty good writer and a fairly thoughtful guy. Still, when someone suggests that I have been a member of "the foreign policy hoi-polloi that went into intellectual hibernation in 2004 and only awoke this January" I figure, it's probably OK to offer a few words on behalf of my views. (Although it does explain the acorn residue I found in my cheeks.) 

I will ignore for a moment the fact that Brose clearly is willing to spot the world the first term of the Bush administration as indefensible and focus on his core notion that somehow the years Condi was at State were almost indistinguishable in intent, concept and execution from what we have seen to date from the Obama team. It should be noted that coincidentally Brose was a speech-writer at State during the Bush administration.

Let's take his points one at a time:

• Brose opens with a snarky summary of my article. The thrust is: Obama foreign policy is not revolutionary and I am kissing the asses of the Obama administration. I refer folks back to the past eight months of daily blogging as evidence that I have no inclination to butter up the new team and regularly do not. He does not note that he spends the entire article kissing the wholly discredited asses of his former employers.

• He then goes on to wonder aloud how anyone who "thinks and writes about foreign policy for a living" could think Clinton or Obama are transforming U.S. foreign policy. I have to admit, whatever the flaws in their individual policies, I find it hard to see how anyone could think they are not. Does he really think these folks just picked up where George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney left off? In Iraq? In Afghanistan and Pakistan? With their approach to engagement? With their commitment to multilateralism? With their approach to Guantanamo or torture? With their outreach to the Muslim world? With their commitment to reverse nuclear weapons proliferation? I could go on ... but will just take his main points in succession to continue in this vein.

• Brose lists Bush administration development "advancements" to suggest that they effectively covered the waterfront when it comes to reforming the development process. While Bush actually did some good here (and I didn't argue he didn't), that doesn't mean the work is done or that what the Clinton team is doing at State is not promising. The Obama team inherited an aid apparatus that was still deeply dysfunctional, underfunded and focused on missions that were not core. The QDDR process I mention in the article represents a commitment to strategic reevaluation that recognizes the fluid nature of international affairs today and seeks to institutionalize change in much the same way that the QDR does at DoD. Further, there is a massive amount of work that needs to be done if development policy is to be rendered effective in the current environment ... creating the ability, for example, to effectively do post-conflict reconstruction that so flummoxed the Bush administration for so long comes to mind, as does a civilian-side Goldwater-Nichols and other ideas that are currently being reviewed within State and the NSC process.

• His next paragraph argues that since the Bush administration participated in many multilateral forums that is the same thing as the Obama administration's commitment to the centrality of new partnerships. Can he actually believe that the Bush administration was a champion of multilateralism? By this same theory all people who go to church are virtuous and I, who talk a very good diet game, am actually 20 pounds lighter than reported this morning by the scale. Admittedly, there was a line in my article that was cut due to space considerations that I wish had been left in which said that while many of the current policies have roots in the past, what is happening now is very different because of the way it is being approached, the centrality it is being given, the degree of involvement of top officials, etc. Nothing illustrates this as much for me as the role emerging powers are being given. First, this is not a "Bush-era" inheritance. I know. Because I actually helped develop and run the first inter-agency process focused on U.S.-Emerging Markets relations during the Clinton years. Second, he cites a four-year-old Condi speech in which she mouths words he may have written about partners in the emerging world but seriously, wasn't he paying attention? At the time she did it, the perception that the U.S. was arrogantly acting apart from the rest of the world was near its apotheosis. The core concepts of Bush era foreign policy were of "us and them" and of our ability and willingness to effectively act alone or within sham coalitions to advance our interests. The core concept of the Obama administration is that just won't work anymore and that effective partnerships with a core group that includes new allies are the sine qua non of international progress.

• He then goes on to say that the administration has too little to show for its efforts. He minimizes restoring American relations with the world as if that weren't central to foreign policy. He then argues that this is not so meaningful because "cooperation has not always followed." Seriously? Will the Obama-Clinton restoration of America's relations with the world only be complete if everyone in the world cooperates with us always? This reveals his core misunderstanding of the nature of the kind of partnerships on which the Obama-Clinton team is seeking to build U.S. foreign policy. Also, in terms of not having much to show for their efforts, that's just ridiculous. Only seven months into their efforts U.S. policy has changed dramatically in Iraq and in AfPak, the administration has become deeply involved in the Arab-Israeli issue (which took the Bush administration about 7 years to discover), it has helped engineer an international response to the financial crisis, it has restored America's damaged reputation worldwide, the president's Prague and Cairo speeches represented dramatic breaks with the Bush past and set U.S. policies with the Muslim world and re: elimination of nuclear weapons in a new direction, and so on. It's just the beginning ... but it is a beginning very unlike the past eight years.

• Further his one-sided assessments of issues worldwide is full of inaccuracies. He says others won't help with Guantanamo but fails to note the benefits accruing to us from shutting it down. He says India and China don't share enthusiasm for a climate deal while failing to acknowledge that we are in a global negotiation, that the United States is now deeply involved as an advocate for progress for the first time or to note the differences in position between India and China (China is much more forward leaning and inclined to a deal). He inaccurately suggests that the only thing we can agree with the Russians is to reduce the number of nukes (as if that were a small thing). He says Pakistan is dysfunctional but fails to note how much more we are currently doing to address that. He says Iran and North Korea are a still difficult while failing to acknowledge the recent progress made with the North Koreans or that engagement with Iran is a real departure (on which the jury is admittedly still out).

• He concludes with the notion that we "are still a world of nations" (simplistic and wrong ... we are a world of many actors some of the most important of which on key issues are non-state actors) and that the Obama administration has been getting "mugged" by our differences since coming into office. This suggests again a misunderstanding of the nature of international relations. Good foreign policy does not produce a problem-free world. It just minimizes threats while advancing our interests. But, it also fails to note the central point that no doubt will resonate in the mind of the rest of the planet...which is that during the Bush years, it was the United States that was mugging the world and the system of international law we had fought for a century to advance.

That's the key point about these early days of this new foreign policy team. All administrations talk about partnerships and new relationships. To my mind, this one seems to believe what it is saying and is doing something about ... and at the very least is not as transparently hypocritical about such matters as was its predecessor. That in and of itself is perhaps the transformation most of the world was most hoping for. 

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Two men were overheard chatting at a Cosi restaurant in DC this weekend. One said, "You know, with the death of Ed McMahon, Farrah, and Michael Jackson, I think the 70s also died. They're over with once and for all." The other guy said, without hesitation, "I'd believe that if Jimmy Carter weren't still president."

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I just overheard the conversation. (Please read on for my rather different view.) 

Personally, I found the obsessive retrospectives about Michael Jackson a little disgusting. His commercial success for a few years as a pop singer seemed to trump the dark and unsavory aspects of his life. But he was no hero. He was certainly no one to be celebrating. Unless of course, you were an ayatollah. Because one of the truly transcendental ironies of recent history has to be the fact that a symbol of the worst sort of Western spiritual and social corruption...celebrity worship, drug culture, financial excess, debauchery...ended up providing just the distraction that the keepers of the Islamic Revolution's flame in Tehran needed to direct the world's attention away from their abuses of their own people. 

In an instant, the really important story of tens of millions struggling to be heard in Iran was swept off the air by the death of a 50 year old accused pedophile in America. CNN, which had been congratulating itself daily for bringing the "green revolution" in Iran to the world as only it could in an instant tossed its news judgment out the window and started offering 24/7 retrospectives on how Michael Jackson chose the red leather jacket he wore in the "Thriller" video.  It was an appalling, cheap and cynical programming choice made worse by the fact that other major stories...from the Congress passing the landmark Waxman-Markey climate legislation to the coup in Honduras...were left to play the role only of journalistic spackle, filling in the cracks between paeans to a man who spent the last twenty years shocking the world with his unhinged depravity.

The sad reality is that none of the celebrities who died in the past week say much good about American culture or the state of hero worship in America. 

Which brings us back to Obama and the overheard Carter crack. Because one way that Obama is clearly unlike Carter is that he has already achieved something momentous and, occasional cigarette aside, he actually does offer Americans a leader whose story is legitimately inspiring. It is far too early to tell whether he will be able to add to a legacy that has already been assured by the fact of his election...but Friday's passage of the Waxman-Markey legislation and the administration's vigorous defense of the bill is a sign that it just might.

The change in the America's stance on the issue of global warming is one of the most dramatic and meaningful of the Obama era. (Don't believe me? See Angela Merkel's recent comments on the subject.) It will not be easy to get Senate passage of similar legislation. Insiders on the Hill with whom I have spoken suggest that in all likelihood the Senate bill will be sidetracked by the healthcare debate and may not be even voted until after the Copenhagen climate summit. This in turn will mean the United States goes in saying "we can go this far if China and India commit to reductions" which is perhaps not optimal, but may well be a good negotiating position.

And if China and India and the other developing countries do commit to meaningful emissions reductions within a reasonable period, then early in 2010 Senate passage and a final bill going to the President seems likely. (One senator told me that the key to selling the bill is letting Americans know they won't be the only ones sacrificing and that for him, the Chinese are the lynchpin. In fact, he said the issue of coal-burning Midwestern states vs. the alternative energy loving coasts is overstated and that  it will be fairly easily settled via "the usual horse trading that goes on up here.") 

The United States has never been closer to meaningful action on combating climate change and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It would be a simultaneous breakthrough in climate security, energy security and economic security. The opposition's antics on the legislation (including Representative Boehner's reference to the just passed legislation as a piece of shit) well illustrated their desperation and cluelessness.  In fact, the people on the wrong side of this legislation once it passes will be seen as being on the wrong side of history and will be very vulnerable to election challenges on those grounds. Especially since recent estimates, like those of the Congressional Budget Office, underscore how minimal the financial impact of the cap and trade provisions of the bill will be on the average family.

I wish CNN and others in the broadcast media had covered this story as they should have and given the president the great credit he deserves for fighting for it. (A nuanced stance which, over the weekend included the airing of the president's principled objections to provisions in Waxman-Markey requiring tariffs be levied against nations that don't commit themselves to emissions reductions.) The well being of millions and perhaps the fate of the planet hangs in the balance and as a consequence, I think a fair case can be made that we could have cut back on the interviews with Lisa Marie and Dame Elizabeth long enough to let the news creep through the maudlin aggrandizement of a featherweight, self-inflicted, altogether tawdry American tragedy.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

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