But how should the President handle this considering his 2008 campaign pledge to not raise taxes for those Americans making less than $250,000 per year?  If the President is serious about tackling our fiscal problems, relying on this pledge would mean pushing the tax rate in excess of 75% for those making more than $250k.  I highly doubt that’s an option for the Obama administration.  So unless he wants to make radical cuts in the way of the Paul Ryan plan, he’s going to have to raise taxes across the board, or something pretty close to that.

This issue will be front and center in 2012, and it will be interesting to see how the President frames it on the campaign trail.  For what it’s worth, I’d prefer him to be straight up with voters and say, “I know I said this in 2008, but we just can’t stick to this given our fiscal situation.  Sometimes you have to go back on your word in order to do what’s right.”  Of course, there will be those who will demand more cuts before raising taxes on anyone.  I, for one, certainly hope he makes as many cuts as possible before resorting to tax increases.  But the whole “rolling back tax cuts on the rich” as a means of reckoning with our deficit and debt is a sound bite that doesn’t seem rooted in reality.

I think people critical of Obama’s handling of this issue, from both sides of the aisle, are off.  First, there is an interesting alliance of liberal Democrats and Rand Paul conservatives who think that the President should have gotten congressional authorization before committing American forces.  In a perfect world, yes, this would be preferable.  But the reality is that Congress is just too slow to make these types of decisions in the modern world, where a matter of seconds can make a difference in thousands of lives.  If we can agree that America, in theory, should respond with force in certain circumstances, even if only multilaterally and through a broad coalition, then we have to accept the fact that Congress might not have a say in every situation that arises.

Now there is the issue of the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 over a presidential veto, which every president since its passage has dubbed unconstitutional.  Assuming for purposes of this post that it is in fact constitutional (which I’ll have to blog about another day), President Obama still has seventy-something days to pull our forces from the conflict and still be consistent with the controversial law, if I understand it correctly.  If he gets authorization from Congress before then, then he’s good to go for the long haul if necessary (for a serious lack of better words).

Then there are those who clearly are just anti-Obama no matter what he does; who claim that he “followed” instead of “lead.”   These include your Newts, Palins, etc.  What the President did was deliberate, consult with allies, win support from both the Arab League and NATO members, and decide on limited strikes to prevent slaughter in Benghazi, without any American troops on the ground, and thus significantly limit our involvement and our costs.  All of this has thus far succeeded in keeping Benghazi out of Qaddaffi’s hands.  I’m really not sure what there is to criticize here.  True, there were some mixed messages on whether regime change was the overriding purpose, and I think the administration has settled for the explanation that our “military objective” is protecting the civilians, while our “strategic objective” is to remove Qaddaffi.  That distinction might not be satisfying for some, but I think it makes sense.  I’m pretty sure our strategic interest is for regime change in much of the Middle East, including Syria and Iran, but it doesn’t mean we can act on it militarily all of the time.  Instead we have to settle for narrow diplomatic, economic, and/or military efforts with limited objectives, but that are nonetheless consistent with our larger strategy in the region.  And certainly letting Qaddaffi crush a popular uprising with force would set an awful precedent for the region at a time when popular uprisings are challenging some of the world’s most repressive regimes.  I think our big-picture strategy in that part of the world is to encourage these uprisings, and our engagement in Libya is consistent with that.

There are some, of course, who say: “If Libya, why not Iran?  Why not Yemen?  Why not Bahrain?”  The answer is that these places aren’t identical.  Military engagement in each place carries its own unique set of consequences and benefits.  You have to pick and choose your fights in this world, inconvenient as that might be and inconsistent as people might perceive it to be.  Not to mention the fact that the Arab League and NATO aren’t exactly going to be cool with bombing anybody and everybody.  And let me emphasize one thing on this point: at this stage in American history, acting through a broad coalition in military engagements is vital.  Regardless of your positions on Iraq, it is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, American has taken a major PR hit as a result.  Anti-Americanism is a threat to the United States and sometimes we can’t afford to act unilaterally even though we might be right in principle.  Consequences and repercussions have a funny way of not giving a crap who is right in principle.

There’s a lot more to say on this, including, but limited to, arming of the opposition and covert CIA involvement.  Apparently these opposition folk are some of the least organized forces in the world and are using WWII era weaponry against Qaddaffi.  Something tells me that, absent some actual training, just handing over some modern weapons to them might not be the best idea.  I’ll comment more on this down the road.

Without a doubt, the President has shifted the rhetoric of the previous administration and has thereby changed the international climate.  His speech in Cairo was historic and demonstrated a real desire to make amends with the Muslim world.  He’s showed an unprecedented willingness to sit and talk with historic enemies.  He’s begun a push toward nuclear disarmament which, if successful, would certainly be deserving of a peace prize.  But almost everyone knows that the President hasn’t accomplished anything truly of substance just yet, although many are confident that he in fact will.

In any event, a peace prize at this stage of the game means several things.  It’s demonstrative of strong international support for the President and should increase his clout on the international stage.  In dealing with the challenges posed by the Middle East and North Korea, this can definitely strengthen his hand.  Perhaps the political fallout will even be beneficial to Obama at home, paving the way for him to push through his domestic agenda.  Nobody should underestimate the power of simple popularity.

But I think there’s a good shot that this could backfire for Mr. Obama.  He’s likely to be scrutinized a lot more as people will expect him to live up to his early accomplishment.  And as if Republicans needed any more ammunition to showcase how little the President has accomplished, they are no doubt going to take full advantage of the genuine shock that the win has generated.  If I was President Obama, I’m not sure I’d want this prize just yet.

A friend of mine just told me that there’s an email being circulated at his job that President Obama is receiving the Cy Young award for throwing out the first pitch at the MLB All-Star Game.  I’m pretty sure that SNL is going to have a field day with this whole thing.

While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.

I think this is a pretty good lesson in foreign policy.  Seemingly contradictory presidencies can actually complement eachother well.  For all of his flaws, it seems fair to say that George Bush’s use of muscle led to some positive changes in the world.  However, the unpopularity of his policies created a vaccum for a president like Barack Obama to fill.  The way I see it, Bush sacrificed America’s popularity to rid the world of certain rogue regimes.  Obama was elected to assuage the negative side-effects of the Bush years and restore America as an example.  This just might be the best of both worlds.

There was a lot of talk during the campaign and in the first few months of Obama’s presidency about how his speeches were nice but lacked any real substance or utility.  While some were skeptical, others were turned off by Obama’s reliance on words that seemed to border on the theatrical.  But if his speech in Cairo last week actually influenced the Lebanese election in the way that it is currently being reported, the skeptics were flat out wrong.  If they make people believe, speeches can truly change the world.

“Mark my words.  It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

For all of his gaffes, Joe Biden just might have been right.  After testing a nuclear bomb underground over the weekend, North Korea has now test-launched two short range missiles, introducing what might be the crisis that Big Joe was referring to.  Of course, the President has not exactly been short on “tests” in his first four months in office.  Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and Somali pirates constitute quite the international plateful for a newly elected president. But nuclear tests by whackjob regimes are basically per se global crises.

As of now, the President has limited his response to labeling the North Korean action as “a grave threat.“  While some would have wanted a stronger choice of words, this seems like a sufficient first step.  But, at the end of the day, North Korea is likely not a very big test for President Obama anyway.  The international community is virtually unanimous in its condemnation of Kim Jong Il’s conduct.  Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came out and condemned the dictator.  Thus, it’ll likely be easy to get the world to speak in one voice against North Korea and to place sufficient pressure on Kim Jong Il to cease his activity.

Moreover, Kim Jong Il (or Lil’ Kim, as Bill Maher likes to call him) might be the most paranoid person on the planet.  All he cares about is the security of his regime and, arguably, improved conditions for his people (We all know they need it.  Take a look at this image – North Korea is the dark spot sandwiched between South Korea and China).  He has no global ambitions – his interests are purely inward looking and the last thing he would want to do is fire a nuclear weapon.  However, he would love to use the weapon as a bargaining chip for international aid to be pumped into the country.

Of course, it seems like a problematic precedent to legitimize the development of nuclear weapons in return for aid.  But North Korea is an example unique to North Korea.  Considering the country’s limited, perhaps even less threatening, intentions, the President would be wise to engage in the policy of negotiation that both Clinton and (eventually) Bush adopted.  Notwithstanding the extreme unlikelihood that North Korea would actually fire a nuclear weapon, I think we would rather keep the Korean peninsula from going nuclear.  If that goal can be bought with aid, so be it.

The administration could also spin such a result as the product of some of the diplomatic idealism that got Barack Obama elected.