Amid the intense domestic coverage of the health care debate came a reminder of the hope that even hardened global figures have for the Obama Presidency and its ability to transform global affairs.

In the hours after Congress acted last Sunday, the White House announced that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was one of the first two global leaders to call and congratulate Obama on his domestic victory.

Now, it is reasonable to assume that the Saudi leader was not particularly concerned about health care reform itself but recognized that its passage would strengthen Obama domestically and perhaps reignite his desire to be remembered as a transformative President not simply at home but also abroad.

In 2008 Obama ran a campaign that, in part, portrayed his very election as a step towards resetting U.S. relations with the international community. Further more, by illustrating his understanding of specific hot button issues ranging from Indo-Pakistani disagreements in Kashmir to the harm caused by the Bush administrations “war on terror”, Obama suggested that he would prioritize tackling the policy matters that had corroded relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world and thus undermined U.S. national security.

His early actions as President, from the appointment of Middle East envoy Mitchell to his historic Cairo speech, collectively suggested that Obama was looking to move beyond simply the reset offered by his election and was seeking a fundamental realignment between the U.S. and the Muslim world that would transform the international arena.

Unfortunately, this early promise has not, thus far, been realized and for many ordinary citizens and policy analysts alike there has been a growing skepticism as to whether Obama would be able to achieve such a realignment and, in some quarters, a questioning of whether he wished to use his Presidency to pursue it.

However, some foreign policy experts and U.S. political observers, including Abdullah, may have identified something else at play that explains the Obama administrations inability to advance its national security agenda thus far. 

Upon taking office Obama faced, perhaps inevitably, opponents willing to test his mettle at home and abroad. By initially failing to secure significant policy and political victories, the new President was pushed back on his heels and arguably lost the focus and transformative desire on display during the campaign. Abdullah, and others, have recognized that with the health care victory Obama has another opportunity to set and implement an ambitious global agenda.

Of course, no one can claim to know whether Obama wishes to prioritize a true transformation of US-Muslim world relations. While his campaign rhetoric and initial Presidential actions suggest that he has such instincts, and unquestionably U.S. national security would benefit from such a move, the end of the story has yet to be written.

Clearly, the passage of health care provides the political boost to such efforts and his year and a half as President may have provided Obama with a picture of what he will have to do and sacrifice to realign relations between the US and the Muslim world. The question now is whether he will choose to follow this difficult path.

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