10 Big Goals for Obama's First 1,460 Days

By Mark Green, Huffington Post. Posted January 13, 2009.

A new president should utilize the patient deployment of all instruments of national power, emphasizing intelligence, information operations and covert action. Specifically, the U.S. should: repeal the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and exit Iraq as quickly and as safely as possible; undermine al Qaeda recruitment by developing a counter-narrative for at-risk Muslim youth that impugns its reputation and enhances ours; schedule a major address on terrorism by the new President in a Muslim country; focus on regional diplomacy in the Middle East by engaging other states (Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt) in a conference to coordinate post-war Iraq policy; cooperate better with other intelligence agencies to treat terrorism as in part a police matter; and create a process of engagement between the U.S. and Iran both to discuss common interests and warn Teheran of the consequences of supporting terrorism and a nuclear weapons program.

10. Reduce nuclear proliferation. Because the greatest threat to America - economic threat and national security threat - is the detonation of a nuclear device in a major American city, a top priority for President Obama is to reduce that risk and to announce the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

So he specifically should: push to develop technologies allowing all air and sea cargo to be inspected by 2012; compile an inventory of all nuclear weapons and materials on earth to determine the best strategy of securing them from terrorist acquisitions; consider unilaterally announcing plans to reduce U.S. forces to 1000 weapons and extending the warning time for the launch of U.S. ballistic missiles, urging Russia to do the same; implement the agreement to end the North Korean nuclear program; prevent the lapse of the U.S. Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START; and maintain the interlocking network of treaties, export controls and security pacts to discourage 183 non-nuclear states from starting a cycle of nuclear weapons competition.

These 10 are top goals now and benchmarks for 2012 or 2016 to measure the success of the new administration.

For America is on the brink of a possible new progressive era due to Obama's big win, big skills, a big crisis, the big popularity of reforms like expanded health care, pre-school programs and green-collar jobs, and a big agenda that's "shovel-ready." But there's one more element necessary for a real realignment to occur: citizens and citizen action.

January 20 is not only about one man who'll alone save us from conservative clutches -- or as one cheeky satirical website puts it, "IthoughtObamawouldgetmelaid.com (admission: this is my adult son's website). No president can go much farther than his constituency wants. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin put it well in The American Prospect: "When you look at the periods of social change, in each instance the president used leadership not only to get the public involved in understanding what the problems were but to create a fervent desire to address these problems in a meaningful way." Recall here the oft-told story how Labor Secretary Francis Perkins was urging a sympathetic FDR to adopt labor reforms, and the politician- in-chief replied -- fine, now make me do it.

Fortunately, the decline of conservatism and advent of Barack Obama is occurring at the same time that there's a new on-line technology capable of harnessing citizen energy nearly cost-free to pressure for a program of Progressive Patriotism, much as the internet, social networks, and ardent bloggers helped lift Obama into office.

Then, if he and his base can credibly claim success by 2012 or 2016 in, say, 7 or more of these 10 goals -- especially health care and democracy -- President Obama will be regarded as a 21st Century FDR and credited with inspiring an era of positive progressive governance.

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Mark Green is co-editor of the just-released "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President," and president of Air America Media.

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