U.S. problems refuse to go away for returning Obama

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 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. 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 percent, and his presidential approval rating has slipped below 50 percent for the first time. As part of a blitz of U.S. television stations, 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.

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 favors 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 health care is also at a critical juncture with the U.S. 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 US$849 billion 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. “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.

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