Finally, despite his lack of foreign policy experience, Obama should trust his own judgments rather than the conventional wisdom of American liberal internationalism, and its many single-issue groups who are bound to spread American power thin.

The one original proposition that Obama took during the campaign was the hint of direct US talks with Iran. Under pressure from the liberals of his own party, who tend to be even more hawkish on Iran than the Republicans, Obama did add caveats.

That he held on to the essence of the argument that America must talk even to its enemies, despite the political controversy it generated, suggests Obama may be willing to rethink many entrenched but self-defeating American foreign policy positions. That surely offers some hope.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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