The review has been delayed not only by fierce internal discussion but by the months-long debate over AfPak strategy, which put almost all other foreign-policy concerns on the back burner. Obama hadn't expected that, any more than he had expected the worst recession in 70 years. Foreign-policy-as-opportunity was eclipsed by foreign-policy-as-crisis-management, much as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan pushed Jimmy Carter's human rights policy to the sidelines. And then, of course, the whole subject was buried beneath the avalanche of health care. The AfPak debate feels almost as long ago as the Prague speech. As Peter Baker observed last week in the New York Times, the president has only glancingly referred to the decisive battle for Marja since it began almost six weeks ago.

Nothing, of course, is permanent in politics. I was foolish enough to write in the early fall of 2007 that voters weren't buying Obama's worldview; a year later, they elected him president. Obama has just gained a momentous and cathartic victory on health care; it's impossible to predict today how much additional political space, if any, will open up as a result. Joblessness, of course, remains extremely high by historic standards. Unless and until it subsides, foreign affairs will matter even less than usual (unless something terrible happens), and Obama and his team will be torn between making good on the transformative vision of the campaign and accommodating the dour and negative public mood, which right now seems to be relentlessly bearing the Democrats toward a 1994-style Waterloo in the midterm elections.

Perhaps the nuclear review will offer some guidance to the president's inclinations. During the 2008 primary campaign, no single issue more powerfully illustrated the difference between Obama's promise of decisive change and Hillary Clinton's cautious incrementalism than his repeated vow to eliminate nuclear weapons, to discard the old paradigm of deterrence in favor of a genuine commitment to nonproliferation. Traditional, battle-scarred Democrats -- like Clinton -- typically avoid calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons for fear of being branded soft on defense. Obama, however, insisted that U.S. national security requires discarding the hard line in favor of the soft.

And now? Obama has already made a large gesture to mollify Republicans, senior military officers, and the nuclear labs by budgeting a 13 percent increase for U.S. nuclear infrastructure at a time when other agencies are being flatlined. His senior officials have ruled against almost all changes in policy -- such as a pledge of "no first use" of nukes -- which might be criticized as too soft. What remains of the Prague vision is the promise to delegitimize nuclear weapons by sharply restricting the scenarios in which they could be used, and to make a down payment on the goal of eliminating such weapons by driving toward much deeper cuts than are envisioned by the current talks with Russia.

If these vows, solemnly undertaken and often repeated, are grossly compromised or reduced to high-flown twaddle, we will know that Obama has accepted an era of reduced expectations. That would be the politically prudent choice. But Obama kept selling his vision in 2007 even when polls and short-sighted journalists suggested he was foolhardy to do so. He didn't take the prudent path on health care, and yet emerged the winner. He is a pragmatist; but he's no cynic. Perhaps, even in the face of public apathy and Tea Party hostility, he'll make good on his promise to restore American leadership.

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