5. Get a backbone. President Obama has sound moral instincts, but he often backs away from them at the first sign of resistance. He came into office with a mandate and Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Had he been willing to use some political capital -- and twist a few arms on the Hill -- in those early months, Guantanamo would be closed, and the United States might have a more coherent approach to national security budgeting. But on these and other issues, the president backed off at the first sign of congressional resistance, apparently deciding (presumably on the advice of the campaign aides who already populated his national security staff) that these issues were political losers.
Of course, it was a self-fulfilling prophesy; the issues became losers because the White House abandoned them. Ultimately, Congress began to view him as weak: a man who wouldn't push them very hard. As a result, Congress pushed back hard on everything, including health care, economic stimulus, and regulation of the financial industry, and Obama was forced to live with watered-down legislation across the board.
If he gets a second term, Obama needs to start thinking about his legacy, and that will require him to fight for his principles, not abandon them. Even if he fights, he won't win every battle -- but if he doesn't fight, he won't win any.
6. Get rid of the jerks. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama famously had a "no assholes" rule, and his staff was legendary for its lack of infighting and drama. Somehow, though, he's managed to populate his national security staff with a fair number of people who seem unable to get along with each other. Insiders say that McDonough and Donilon can barely stand each other, contradicting each other publicly so often that no one's ever sure who really speaks for the president. Both men are also famously rude to colleagues: it's a rare individual who hasn't been screamed at by one or the other. The nastiness demoralizes everyone and sends the message that rudeness and infighting are acceptable.
That's no way to run a railroad. It drives away those not fond of public excoriation or back-stabbing and reduces those who remain to sniveling yes-men. Obama needs to reinstate the "no assholes" rule, hold his senior staff to standards of civilized behavior, and get rid of those who won't change. It's not impossible: the Pentagon under Robert Gates was a remarkably civilized place. As the military knows, command climate matters. The command climate at the NSS is one in which rudeness is tolerated. It shouldn't be.
President Obama came into office with so much good will -- from his own staff, from the American people, and from the world. But through his own unforced errors, he's lost much of that goodwill. To some extent, his errors are errors of inexperience: Obama simply undervalued issues of strategy, structure, process, and personnel. These are understandable mistakes for a first-term president with little prior government experience (or management experience, for that matter). But such errors will be far less excusable if Obama gets a second term. If American voters give Obama four more years, he needs to push the foreign policy "reset" button.
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