Word: agenda
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...skepticism” about the power of the government by thinking up unconventional ways to solve the nation’s biggest problems. Citizens have the real power to influence the nature of political initiatives in the coming years and choose the United States’s social agenda, but the extent of that influence depends on their engagement in the present. Alan Khazei is the candidate best equipped to increase citizens’ participation and help them shape their own political futures in this nation...
...second problem with Obama's agenda is that although he wants to cut deals with regimes like Iran's and movements like the Taliban, he's not in a particularly strong position to do so. Back in 2002 or 2003, when the U.S. looked almost invincible, the Iranians appeared willing to concede a lot simply to forestall a U.S. attack. Now, with the U.S. mired in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are less afraid and thus less willing to deal. Similarly, the Taliban have little incentive to break with al-Qaeda so long as they feel they're gaining momentum...
...particular societies. That means that unlike al-Qaeda, they can't simply be destroyed. Rather, the goal must be to transform them from military organizations into purely political and social ones, as happened with the Irish Republican Army. The U.S. might still dislike their Islamist, anti-Western, anti-Israeli agenda, but as Obama said in an interview with the Arab-owned news channel al-Arabiya during his first week in office, he would be "very clear in distinguishing between organizations ... that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it - and people who ... have a [different] viewpoint [from...
...most urgent and high-profile item on Obama's downsizing agenda is, of course, Afghanistan. For eight years, the Bush Administration lumped al-Qaeda and the Taliban together. It was the most obvious application of Bush's famous declaration that "we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." But now the Obama Administration is making exactly that distinction. "There is clearly a difference between" the Taliban and al-Qaeda, press secretary Robert Gibbs said recently. A host of Obama officials have insisted that the Taliban is a tribal and national movement...
...Obama's effort to downsize the war on terrorism can also free up time and resources for the rest of American foreign policy. During the Bush Administration, the post-9/11 agenda often seemed to constitute a good 75% of the U.S.'s international agenda. If Obama could eventually get that down to, say, 50%, it would free him up to devote attention to long-term challenges like climate change and the global economy that Bush gave short shrift...