by Ian Bremmer

President Barack Obama has had an exceptionally lucky firstyear. All newly elected U.S. presidents arrive in office hoping to avoidthe unforeseen foreign-policy crises that upend their domestic agendas.

In John Kennedy's first year, he stumbled into the Bayof Pigs, and the Soviets built the Berlin Wall. LyndonJohnson landed the Gulf of Tonkin incident andChina's first atomic test. GeraldFord got the fall of Saigon.Ronald Reagan got martial law inPoland and the assassination of AnwarSadat. George H.W. Bush gotTiananmen Square. Bill Clinton gotthe first World Trade Center bombing, a crisis inSomalia, and the withdrawal of NorthKorea from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.George W. Bush got 9/11. President Obama has avoidedthe foreign-policy blowups that push an administration off balance. Hisluck isn't likely to last.

Obama has good reason to focus on problems at home

Approval ratingsfor his handling of the U.S. economy and for his overall job performancehave moved lower in striking parallel. Given the political complexitiesof health care, banking, energy and immigration reform, a $787billion stimulus package, and 10.2 percent unemployment,domestic policy has demanded the president's attention. With midtermelections next November and the likelihood of reduced Democraticlegislative majorities in 2011, the administration is wise to movequickly on these issues.

On foreign policy, the goal has been to prevent chronic problems frombecoming attention-absorbing crises.

To ensure that low-level tradeconflicts with China don't poison the broaderbilateral relationship, the administration has picked its fightscarefully. To avoid pointless confrontation withMoscow, the White House pledged to"reset" U.S.-Russian relations. Obama signaled a willingness to talkdirectly with Iran about its nuclear program. Itlimited administration criticism of the country's disputed presidentialelection last summer and the government crackdown that followed.

With considerable luck, the strategy has so far proven a success.Conditions in Afghanistan deteriorated sharply in2009 but have not yet descended into full-blown crisis.Iraq is moving toward its next round of elections.Civilian government has survived in Pakistan. TheKorean peninsula is no more dangerous than usual. Relations withJapan have undergone a stress test as the Obamaadministration and a new government in Tokyo learnto read one another's signals. Yet blow-ups have been averted, and thepresident has focused much of his time and energy on economic stimulusand the politics of health care.

But the president's stopover in China last weekrevealed that, in 2010, it won't be so easy to keep foreign and domesticchallenges in separate boxes. It's not that the visit went badly. Onlythe president's most naive admirers and cynical partisan critics saythey expected the trip might yield some kind of breakthrough.China won't revalue its currency or reverse courseon opposition to Iran sanctions simply becauseObama is engaging and a forceful speaker. Yet critics from across thepolitical spectrum have cast the trip as a failure because the presidentreturned home without trophies in hand.

The criticism tells us two things. First, even the left will holdObama to a tougher standard next year, because America's joblessrecovery provides floundering Republicans with potent election-yearammunition and strips Democrats of political cover. Second, nowhere doAmerica's foreign and domestic policies collide with greater force thanin U.S.-Chinese relations. U.S. lawmakers will work hard in 2010 toavoid blame for lingering unemployment, and China'strade and currency policies make for obvious scapegoats.

China will add to the problem. Like Obama,President Hu Jintao wants to avoid foreign-policyconflicts and to focus on job creation, sustainable growth and long-termeconomic reform. But the surge of national pride acrossChina as the country continues its rise onto theinternational stage leaves the Chinese people ever less tolerant ofcriticism from Washington. The current series oftrade disputes over minor issues might finally provoke a broaderpolitical confrontation, bringing a distinct chill to the world's mostimportant bilateral relationship.

Obama's troubles will extend well beyond China.It will take months to deploy thousands of new troops the president isabout to send to Afghanistan, inviting bittercriticism from the war-weary left before reinforcements have time toproduce results. The president will also spend much of 2010 innegotiation with reluctant allies over sanctions against an increasinglybelligerent Iran.

Finally, the Copenhagen climate changesummit probably won't produce tangible progress on emissions reductions.That will turn the world's focus toward an Obama administration push topersuade Congress to impose new burdens on U.S. carbonemitters during both an election year and a slow economic recovery.Republicans and conservative Democrats won't like the president's plan.Progressive Democrats and foreign governments won't like hiscompromises.

President Obama has endured a demanding first year. But history andseveral brewing international storms suggest that 2009 will soon seem amuch simpler time.

 

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