The global challenges are just as daunting, beginning with U.S. forces deployed in two wars and extending to fighting in Gaza; nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea; tension between India and Pakistan; suffering in Darfur, Burma, Congo and Zimbabwe. If anything, the war in Iraq, the issue that helped propel Mr. Obama to his nomination, is among the easier items on his international to-do list.
But Mr. Obama sets out with some powerful advantages, and not only of temperament and ability. He has assembled, already, a team rich in experience and pragmatic competence. He is graced with a country that is eager, almost desperate, for him to succeed. In part thanks to the somber and unflappable tone he has sounded since the election, Americans are both hugely optimistic about the Obama presidency, polls show, and realistic about the time he will need to produce results. His popularity abroad creates new opportunities for U.S. leadership.
More than a few grains of salt are called for here. Mr. Obama is a man of great promise but relatively little experience. The hopefulness of recent inauguration days soon gave way to cynicism and disappointment. Each new administration promises to reject the slash-and-burn politics of the previous crowd, only to get caught up in more of the same, or worse. Too often, the way presidents pledged to govern as candidates bears little resemblance to the way they operate once in office. And history plays its own tricks: The challenges a president ends up wrestling with are rarely foreseen on Inauguration Day.
Yet, like most Americans, we can’t help feeling something particularly special about this Inauguration Day. Like most Americans, we will be rooting for Mr. Obama to succeed.