Afghanistan is the one area where the president has shown an inclination to taste more blood than even his predecessor. Yet Afghanistan, the war Obama chose to fight and the terrain where he is prepared to unleash even more lethal force without much concern for his liberal credentials, is the place that can deliver most disappointments and where the only change of course possible — other than getting more boots on the ground — is one that would seal his fate as a one-term president like Jimmy Carter. Obama can stay the course there only if foreign policy is going to be a source of success — dumping President Hamid Karzai or seeking accommodation with the Taliban are not going to endear him to the American public or make the world a safer place.

That leaves Iran.

This president started his term speaking in hopeful terms of engagement and a new era in US-Iranian relations. He sought a new beginning and was genuine — if perhaps naive — in his belief that Iran would be moved by his gentler, kinder tone. He has tried the route of engagement and turned it into a strong argument with America's allies for tougher sanctions against Iran. 

The real question now is, can this president do what, at least on the Upper West Side, at UN headquarters and across Western Europe, appears unthinkable, unfathomable and unacceptable? Could Obama decide, in the next 12-18 months, that a massive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities could serve many of his foreign policy goals that have eluded him so far and, in the process, reverse his fortunes?

I would not put it past him. This is a president, after all, who made the issue of global nuclear disarmament a top priority and an issue very close to his heart. Seeing Iran go nuclear on his watch and, as a consequence, sweep away the whole notion of a world rid of nuclear weapons, would seal his fate as a one-term president and his legacy forever as an appeaser.

The Middle East will be watching him closely in the next few months. Given the way that political weakness is interpreted in that region, one can expect some provocation before long. Like all challenges predicated on the false assumption that America is in decline, they may just reawaken the sleeping giant.