THE CRUNCH COMETH - AT 7:22 A.M. ET:  In a way, this is foreign-policy week.  The president is at the UN, talks with Iran - if you want to call them talks - are imminent, our Afghanistan effort is reaching critical mass, and Mr. Obama will try to bring Israelis and Arabs together for at least a photo op.

A crunch is upon us.  What we see is the administration's domestic track, already twisted and broken, intersecting with the foreign track, where Mr. Obama cannot count a single success in his eight months in office.  The president's poll numbers have declined largely on the basis of domestic confusion and failure.  If he starts flopping heavily in the coming weeks of foreign initiatives and decisions, his troubles will only multiply, and his presidency will be in substantial jeopardy. 

It is true that a president's first year can be rocky - witness Kennedy and Clinton - but Obama faces special hazards, for his presidency is based largely on rhetoric, not accomplishment or skill at governing.  He has little to fall back on, no "second career" so to speak.  And he faces a determined opposition in the 2010 midterms, where his side will likely lose votes in Congress.  He desperately needs a clean victory, but there doesn't seem to be any playing field where that can be assured.

Bret Stephens, of the Wall Street Journal, looks at Obama's foreign policy, and finds it appalling.  Will this be the conventional wisdom two months from now?

Beggar thy neighbor, bankrupt thy country, appease thy foe. As slogans (or counter-slogans) go, it isn't quite in a class with Amnesty, Acid and Abortion. But it pretty much sums up President Obama's global agenda—and that's just for the month of September.

In 1943, Walter Lippmann observed that the disarmament movement had been "tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament." That ought to have been the final word on the subject.

Mr. Stephens will not soon be invited to lunch at the White House.

He notes that President Obama will be discussing disarmament at the UN this week, and that the administration wants to play the right "mood music," to get Iran and North Korea in the right frame of mind.  Stephens notes:

Mr. Obama would be better served having a chat with Moammar Gadhafi, who will be seated just a few chairs away at the Security Council: The mood music for his disarmament was set by the 4th Infantry Division when it yanked Saddam Hussein from his spider hole in December 2003. Col. Gadhafi gave up his WMD a week later.

I wonder how many "journalists" will remind us of that.  Don't start counting.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is earning kudos from the Russian government for his decision to pull missile defense from central Europe, even as Poland marked the 70th anniversary of its invasion by the Soviet Union. Moscow is still offering no concessions on sanctioning Iran in the event negotiations fail, but might graciously agree to an arms-control deal that cements its four-to-one advantages in tactical nuclear weapons...

...And all of this in a single month. Just imagine what October will bring.

A year ago Barack Obama was a minor Chicago politician with a silver voice.  Today he's...well, there's nothing wrong with a silver voice.

It's time to grow in office.  And, of course, we wish Mr. Obama well as he confronts the "international community" at the UN this week.

September 22, 2009