Obama's first big test

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Barack Obama's first big test is just 10 days away, and the immediate prospect is that he might duck it or even fail it.

America's first black president will enter the White House with a monstrously difficult agenda that includes a global financial crisis, a recession in the United States, two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism and the climate change challenge, just to name the most obvious.

Of those, the one that worries most people most immediately is the global financial crisis, and on Nov. 15 President George W. Bush has invited the leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized nations for a Washington summit to address it. Optimists say this should be the meeting that lays down the ground rules for a new Bretton Woods agreement, based on the 1944-1945 meetings in New Hampshire where Britain and the United States designed the postwar economic system.

Leaders of the Group of Eight leading industrial countries will be there, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who initially called for such a summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel already has discussed the agenda for the meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and they both plan to attend, along with the leaders of Japan and Canada.

But the G20 is bigger than that and includes China, whose President Hu Jintao says he will attend, plus India, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Argentina, Australia, South Korea, Turkey and Indonesia are also expected, along with the heads of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Altogether, the G20 accounts for three-quarters of the world's GDP.

This is shaping up to be the economic equivalent of the Treaty of Versailles or the Congress of Vienna, one of those grand international gatherings that can define an era. But as President-elect Barack Obama said last week, "We only have one president at a time," and on Nov. 15 that will still be George Bush.

Before the election, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the administration "will seek the input of the president-elect." But she added that the administration thinks that the severity of the global crisis requires nations to move ahead before a new president is sworn in on Jan. 20.

"The time will be just about right to have it then, because a lot of the emergency measures that these countries have put forward are hopefully starting to have an impact" on credit markets, Perino said.

Members of Obama's inner circle are still discussing this, but there is a lot of reluctance to attend. They are fielding a lot of input from Washington ambassadors and proposed congratulation calls from foreign leaders who all want to say that there will not be much point in having the summit if Obama is not going to be at the table to pledge his commitment to whatever plans and decisions are made here. Bush, after all, has only 10 weeks left in office.

So far, the indications are that Obama will duck the event, on the precedent that Franklin Roosevelt set in 1932 when the lame-duck President Herbert Hoover tried to rope Roosevelt in to make joint decisions on tackling the Great Depression. In effect, Roosevelt said Hoover was on his own until Inauguration Day. This is an understandable position for Obama to take. This will be Bush's meeting, with his invitations to his White House and under Bush's auspices, and he will be in the chair. It will be staffed by his aides, which means they will draft the final statement on whatever decisions are made.

There will be no clear role for Obama, even though the other world leaders are all aching to meet him. Indeed, if he is not going to attend, expect cancellations, great disappointment and the frightening prospect for the world's markets that they will be left twisting in the wind until Obama takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.

"We cannot possibly afford to wait until Jan. 20 with the global economy in this deep crisis," former World Bank President James Wolfensohn told this reporter moments after Obama's victory was declared.

But if the meeting goes ahead, who speaks for the United States at this meeting, Bush or Obama? Who will decide on the wording of the statement on world trade? Will it be free trader Bush or the more protectionist Obama, who said in the campaign he wants to review the North American Free Trade Agreement? Who carries out the immediate decisions, Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson or the replacement Obama has yet to choose?

The issue at hand could hardly be more pressing or more serious: the grand design for the global economic system of the 21st century. And the world markets and the banks and investors will be hanging on every word that is said. If this summit turns out to be a bust, the sense of gloom is likely to hit markets and stock prices everywhere.

And Obama will take part of the blame, leaving a very big hole where his global honeymoon was supposed to be.

There could be ways around this. Bush could do the honorable thing: open the summit meeting, call it to order, and then hand the chair to Obama and either leave the room or sit to one side and promise to back whatever decisions his successor takes. It would take superhuman self-restraint and humility on Bush's part, and somebody probably would have to lock Dick Cheney in the basement, but it is possible.

Another idea being discussed between Obama aides and a heavyweight Washington think tank is that as soon as the Bush summit ends with some boilerplate language and expressions of solidarity and good will, it immediately reconvenes elsewhere in Washington with Obama in pride of place, and all the other world leaders beaming as their TV stations back home project them meeting with the world's new man of the hour. And the markets are happy.

This is Obama's first big decision and his first big test. Welcome to the big leagues.