Obama returns to problems
2009-11-20 21:08
Washington - US President Barack Obama is returning from an Asia tour lacking the fanfare of past trips to a set of persistent problems, including Afghanistan, unemployment and healthcare reform.
A year ago, just elected as America's first black president, he could count on a rock star reception everywhere he went.
But on Thursday a greying Obama slipped back into a rain-soaked White House largely under the radar of the world's media.
Accused by critics at home of achieving few concrete results in Asia, Obama is also confronting dipping popularity that is unlikely to improve as he tackles a host of divisive political decisions.
Among his top priorities is a decision, after months of internal debate, on whether to send tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.
Leaks and counter-leaks
His deliberations, punctuated by leak and counter-leak from government departments, have brought to the fore lingering doubts about who the United States should be fighting in Afghanistan and to what end.
According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, approval for Obama's Afghan policy has fallen sharply to 45%, and his presidential approval rating has slipped below 50% for the first time.
Obama recently told NBC the Afghan decision will be announced "over the next several weeks".
"I'm confident that at the end of this process, I'm going to be able to present to the American people in very clear terms what exactly is at stake, what we intend to do, how we're going to succeed, how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take," he said.
Questioning wisdom
Obama faces opposition to the dispatch of more troops from members of his own party, who question the wisdom of deploying additional soldiers to Afghanistan.
But the military strongly favours a so-called surge, and Obama risks being denounced by Republican critics as weak on national security if he refuses the request.
On the domestic front, Obama's plan to overhaul healthcare is also at a critical juncture with the US Senate expected to vote soon on its version of the controversial bill.
Support from within Obama's own Democratic Party is far from assured, as fiscal conservatives balk at the bill's $849bn price tag.
Still, Obama is unwilling to abandon his promise of having legislation in place by the end of the year, and with it a major political victory.
"I haven't given up on it. We're going to keep on pushing as hard as we can to make that happen," he told Fox News.
Big complicated piece of business
"It is a big complicated piece of business, and frankly, Congress is not accustomed, lately, to doing big complicated pieces of business like this."
Another key plank of Obama's election manifesto is also dragging: plans to shutter the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison by January 2010.
Forced during his eight-day Asia tour to admit that the deadline would be missed, Obama is also under fire at home over his attorney general's decision to try five men accused of plotting the September 11 2001 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, at a civilian court in New York City.
Republicans and some relatives of victims of the attack have blasted the decision to prosecute the men in a civilian court, blocks from Ground Zero, rather than at a military tribunal.
But perhaps Obama's biggest worry is still the economy.
Hours before departing for Asia, Obama sought to remind Americans that he still had his eye on the economic ball by announcing a White House summit on December 3 to address measures to ease the country's double digit unemployment.
"I spend every waking hour when I'm talking to my economic team about how, where are you going to put people back to work," Obama told Fox.
- SAPA