Barack Obama takes huge expectations to the White House this week, with most of the world cheering him on but watching carefully to see how he tackles two serious problems.
The United States' economy must be put back on track to restore confidence around the world, for the survival of national economies. Along with that most difficult and urgent task, Obama must galvanise a new era of consciousness about the risks facing the Earth from man-made warming. And there's the Middle East's seemingly intractable conflict, global terrorism, and the Indian sub-continent the list goes on because the global community is looking for fresh leadership on its problems.
George W.Bush squandered America's political capital as the last superpower with his failed war in Iraq, his blinkered view of climate change and a one-eyed view of the Middle East. Angry voters swept out Bush and John Howard for remarkably similar reasons, but neither leader accepts any doubts about their legacy, as demonstrated during last week's medal ceremony in Washington.
With the advent of the Obama administration comes new hope for his nation and for the world. He promises a ''post-partisan'' approach and has already installed his once bitter rival, Hillary Clinton, into one of the country's most powerful positions.
Obama and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have a remarkable alignment of policies, from Iraq to Afghanistan to climate change, but it is to be hoped that Obama will act more boldly than Rudd. The 44th president does not have time to refer every decision on the economy to a committee for review. He must act quickly and decisively to rescue the capitalist system from itself. To do that, he is proposing a trillion dollar bail-out program that will distribute taxpayers' funds to corporations that in the past have made huge profits. The necessity for this ''socialism'' emphasises just how desperate are the times.
The global financial crisis was not making headlines when Obama began campaigning against then senator Clinton in the snow flurries of Iowa. Now the winner has inherited what pessimists think is a poisoned chalice. Will Obama's legacy be a crushing depression and huge dole queues? That is most unlikely because political leaders are applying the lessons learnt from the Great Depression, pump-priming the economy, quickly and aggressively.
The most urgent objective of this largesse is restoring confidence. If consumers believe times are improving, they will be encouraged to spend, thereby maintaining existing jobs and hopefully creating more. However, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed last week that stimulus packages would not be effective unless stability was returned to the global financial system.
America will have more money to spend on domestic programs as it withdraws from Iraq. Obama is promising to have the majority of combat troops home by the middle of next year, with the remainder protecting diplomats, targeting al-Qaeda, training the Iraqi army and rebuilding infrastructure. If that agenda sounds familiar, it should because that is what Australia is doing in Iraq, after Rudd's order to withdraw combat troops.
Obama and Rudd will refocus efforts on the ''right war'' in Afghanistan and pressure Europe to share the burden of hunting the Taliban.
The expectations accompanying Obama to the White House are massive and doubtless some are unrealistic. Late last week a poll found ''stratospheric expectations'' for the incoming president, but also revealed that a majority of those Americans surveyed believed Obama would be able to implement all of his 10 major campaign promises, from doubling the production of alternative energy to ensuring that all children had health insurance.
However, he is not a magician. There is no prestidigitation to instantly cure the ''cold'' caught by so many nations because Wall Street ''sneezed'', just as he cannot order an overnight end to suicide bombings in India, religious hate in the Middle East or crippling famine in Africa. Australian farmers should not hold out hope that he will cut subsidies to American grain growers. The US farm lobby is too powerful to allow significant change and Obama's attention will be on restoring his nation's economy, not reducing jobs in key industries by allowing more cheap imports.
He says one of his first actions will be to sign an order to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay jail, which is welcomed, but it will take months to find countries willing to take the inmates.
Political leaders deal in hope, ideas and symbolism. To extend hope, Obama campaigned under the slogan, ''change''. To inject a new idea, he promised to withdraw troops from Iraq. For a slice of symbolism, he traded his V-8 Chrysler for a hybrid when he began his White House campaign. Tomorrow he will shuttle around town in a fuel-guzzling limo but his personal carbon footprint is the least of his worries as the world watches his every step.
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