Obama Must Deliver in 2010

During the holiday season, pundits traditionally pen their "end of year" assessments of a presidential administration. Some even assign a grade, as if foreign policy can be reduced to a kind of schoolwork assignment.

But instead of grading the performance of the president and his team over the past year, I'd rather take a look at the environment in which his administration must operate after the New Year. And for President Barack Obama, 2010 is going to be a challenging year indeed.

First, Obama can no longer offer himself the breathing room represented by "policy reviews" used to assess what his predecessor has bequeathed him. If there's been any doubt over the past few months, in 2010 it's official: Obama now "owns" U.S. foreign and defense policy.

As for the outcome of those policy reviews, in some cases, Obama has reversed Bush administration policy -- for instance, in canceling the plans for the deployment of a ballistic-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. In other cases, he has modified his predecessor's approach -- putting a greater emphasis on diplomatic engagement with Iran, or engaging in an attempted "reset" of relations with Russia. And then there are the areas of continuity between administrations -- Sudan policy comes to mind.