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President-elect Barack Obama has promised to renew American leadership in the world. The world is more than ready. After six years of war, Iraqis are eager to bid goodbye to an administration that invaded and occupied their country. Africans and Asians see a more cosmopolitan and open-minded president with roots in their lands. Europeans are nearly giddy with excitement about a president who they believe will consult with them rather than dictate to them, and who will act pragmatically rather than ideologically. Obama is entering his first term with so much global goodwill that it is almost as if the tape is being rolled back to Sept. 12, 2001, when the outpouring of international support was best expressed in the French newspaper headline: “We are all Americans.”

Almost. But not quite. It’s worth remembering how that support was squandered. After the attacks of 9/11, most of the world accepted the United States’ decision to go to war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan as a legitimate act of self-defense. But when President Bush referred to the pursuit of Osama bin Laden as a “crusade,” it suggested to many Muslims that he was launching a religious war. And although Iran cooperated with the war effort that year, its reward was to be placed on Bush’s “axis of evil” list the next.

Then, in 2003, the United States ignored the will of the United Nations and invaded Iraq to rout Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which proved to be nonexistent. In the messy aftermath, the beacon of American liberty was snuffed out by prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, by waterboarding and other torture of suspected terrorists, by the secret transfer of detainees to third countries for rough interrogation, and by the decision to hold prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility indefinitely, without charge. In the last months of the Bush administration, the collapse of Wall Street brought down international markets, leaving U.S. capitalism looking as tattered as a copy of “Das Kapital” in the rubble of the Berlin Wall.

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Over the past eight years, much of the world came to view the United States as a rogue superpower, flexing its muscle at the expense of the global good. According to the Pew Research Center, favorable opinions of the U.S. have declined in 26 of 33 countries polled since Bush took office. Some of the biggest drops in ratings were among our allies: from 83% to 53% in Britain, 78% to 31% in Germany and 52% to 12% in Turkey.

This is the backdrop against which Obama enters the White House, radiating hope for a new era and an optimism that is necessary for remaking international politics as well as markets. He faces myriad challenges, from the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran to the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, instability in Pakistan and ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East. And, of course, the United States can no more roll back history than it can survive on goodwill alone. After the costly misadventures in Iraq and a U.S. economic collapse unlike any since the Depression, Obama has fewer resources with which to address these global problems, along with the pressing issues of war-fueled hunger and disease in Africa or global climate change.

While the Bush administration was focusing its attention on Iraq, countries such as China and Brazil expanded their regional influence, and Russia began reasserting its power. Obama must work with them now, as well as with allies in Europe that want the United States to resume its role as a superpower. He must do so more responsibly, however. As he restores the country to a place of honor in the world, certain principles should guide him: He must emphasize America’scapacity and willingness to intervene when necessary, but he must temper military strength with a commitment to international cooperation; he must articulate clearly defined goals for any military engagement; and, most important, he must resume this nation’s adherence to the rule of law.

This is the first in a four-part series on the challenges facing the Obama administration as it seeks to reestablish America’s standing in the world.

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