The ingredients for a one term American President or the recipe for a long term dictator?

On the domestic front the author of this article should also have mentioned the amnesty no win program, terrorism, a run on the dollar, hyper inflation, high unemployment, riots, energy shortages, rationing, a draft, perhaps an EMP attack, thought police and maybe a police state. On the foreign threat he missed North Korea, Venezuela, and probably the next world war. Combine what Gerard Baker suggested in this article and what I just added, throw in a few unknown ingredients, turn the world upside down and let it simmer for a couple of years and what will come out of America’s melting pot?

This is the election you wouldn’t want to win | Gerard Baker - Times Online

It is highly probable that that moment, the very hour that he takes office, will be the high point of his presidency. Whoever wins on November 4 will be ascending to the job at one of the most difficult times for an American chief executive in at least half a century.

At some point reality will bite hard and politicians will discover that they simply cannot go on funding two wars, cutting taxes, creating vast new government health and pension programmes and doing the other essential things that the Federal Government does

The US is now indisputably entering the darkest phase of a period that will not only produce real hardship, but could send further shocks through financial markets and cause deeper fiscal damage.

Then there is energy policy. Weaning America off its oil addiction might actually need to be a policy rather than a slogan in the next four years; but that will place new burdens on the budget and require sacrifices difficult to make in good times, let alone in economically distressed ones.

Compared with all this, foreign policy looks like a doddle.

The next president has only to complete the process of transition in Iraq, win the war in Afghanistan, face down a resurgent Russia, continue to keep its foot on the throat of stateless Islamist terrorism, stop Iran from going nuclear and figure out what to do about the challenge from China - the most serious threat to US global hegemony since America became top nation.

Oh, and I didn’t mention Pakistan. Conversations this week with advisers to both campaigns suggest that both now see Pakistan - especially after last week’s terrorist attack in Islamabad - as perhaps the most intractable and serious challenge of all in the next few years: they candidly admit that no one has much of a clue what to do about it.

Full article