"....Obama may have to change his to-do list in his sophomore year ..."

Friday-Lunch-Club

McClatchy's/ here

"... AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

This will be the second year that Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, sending 30,000 to 35,000 more U.S. troops to join the 70,000 who are there already. There were 31,000 there the month before he took office.As he works to stabilize the Afghan government and fight al Qaida there, he also must press against al Qaida terrorists and their allies in Pakistan.U.S. policy calls for working with the Pakistani government rather than invading its territory, but Pakistan hasn't been as aggressive as the U.S. would like, and American drone strikes on terrorist targets there have raised tensions.

IRAQ

This is the year that most U.S. troops are to withdraw from Iraq. Tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and between Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds there remain high, though, and the political and humanitarian effects of the resulting security vacuum are of great concern to the region and to Obama.

MIDDLE EAST

Obama dispatched his national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, to the Mideast this week in a new bid to get the Israelis and Palestinians to the peace table.It's unclear whether anything has changed, though, whether even modest progress is possible and what new leverage the U.S. could exert.

IRAN

With the failure of his effort to talk Iran into dropping its nuclear ambitions, Obama must decide this year whether and how to move on tougher sanctions.Congress is poised to act, but the administration and other U.N. Security Council members have a calculation to make: whether intervening now, when civil unrest is directed at the Iranian regime, would be counterproductive.

TERRORISM

After missing his one-year deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Obama still faces plenty of challenges to getting it done.He'll encounter congressional resistance as he seeks to prepare an Illinois state maximum-security prison as the new home for Guantanamo detainees who are facing military commissions or indefinite detention. He'll face domestic pressures from all sides over everything from limiting civil liberties to protecting the homeland from further attacks.The attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing further complicates the closing because of questions about detainees that were to be returned to Yemen, where the bombing suspect allegedly was trained."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 11:06 AM

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian