This is the last post I will write before the presidential election. I do not pretend to know what the outcome will be but if the polls are right it appears that Senator Obama will be the next U.S. president. If so, it is likely that it won’t be long before, as his running mate Sen. Joe Biden said, that he will be tested. The same thing could be said even if Sen. McCain wins.

The truth is that in respect to many different foreign policy and military issues the United States has been acting like a not very proficient juggler, tossing balls into the air in an effort to keep them from falling to the ground.

The truth is that the time that some dubbed the “unipolar moment” which all the neoconservatives were crowing about years ago, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and U.S. victory in Operation Desert Storm, is long gone.

Just consider what the next president of the United States will confront. In respect to Iraq there might not be an accepted Status of Forces Agreement, meaning U.S. troops will lack legal authority to remain there. U.S. officials say they would have to cease operations and confine troops to bases unless some other arrangement, such as an extension of the U.N. mandate, could be worked out.

In respect to Iran, aside from its nuclear program, a new president will have to deal with what seems to be an ongoing program of U.S. sponsored covert violence to bring about regime change. A new paper by the Century Foundation detailing this program concludes that:

We can expect more incidents, and we can expect the risk of retaliatory incidents to increase. As that happens, the point resurfaces. When does Iran reach its tipping point and begin to fight back, not with words, but with expanded terrorist acts?

Over in Afghanistan US casualties are higher than at any time since the invasion, and instability in Pakistan is fueling violence across the border. In fact, it was reported yesterday that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan now believe they need about 20,000 additional troops to battle a growing Taliban insurgency. Remember that the Pentagon has already approved the deployment of one additional combat battalion and one Army brigade, or about 4,000 troops, set to arrive in Afghanistan by January. Commanders have already requested three more combat brigades — 10,500 to 12,000 troops — but those reinforcements depend on further reductions from Iraq and are unlikely to arrive until spring or summer. Given that about 32,000 U.S. troops now serve in Afghanistan the additional requested troops would mean, to paraphrase Sen. Everett Dirkensen’s famous saying about governmental spending, that we are talking about real troop levels.

Meanwhile continued U.S. attacks in Pakistan by drone aircraft against Taliban or Al-Qaeda targets serve to drive the United States and Pakistan apart. The most recent, when an American drone aircraft hit a militant compound in South Waziristan last weekend, killing 20 people, is the latest example.

Ironically, the U.S. is actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban. Personally, I think that is a good idea, similar to what the U.S. did in Iraq in fighting Al-Qaeda there, but shouldn’t we be trying that first, before sending another 20,000 troops to Afghanistan?

In North Korea the hard-won nuclear deal with North Korea may be unraveling after a hopeful period in which the North shuttered its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and dramatically blew up the cooling tower. Workers stopped dismantling the complex last month, after the United States failed to take North Korea off the terrorism list — a step toward diplomatic rehabilitation. Now technicians at Yongbyon are preparing to restart a plant that makes weapons-grade plutonium.

The deal may still be salvageable but it will take concerted diplomatic effort.

On these and numerous other issue the United States will find that its only chance of creating workable solutions will be do them multilaterally, in concert with other nations.

That will call not only for bi- but also intercontinental partisanship. So let’s hope the next president holds the Inauguration Day ceremonies to a minimum and is prepared to spend long hours working in the Oval Office. There is going to be a great deal to do.

Related posts:

1. Obama and Karzai: The Odd Couple
2. Goodbye to 2009: The year in review
3. Al Qaeda and the Taliban Still Tied in a Knot
4. Afghanistan: I don’t believe in miracles
5. Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons for sale