January 16, 2009

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama, who has focused mostly on the nation's economic travails, says he will appoint a team immediately after his inauguration Tuesday to address "on Day One" the crisis in Gaza and brewing troubles across the Middle East.

"We've got a regional set of problems," Obama said in a wide-ranging interview, noting challenges in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Gaza. "They're not going to be solved in isolation. We've got to be active in all these areas in order for us to be successful in any of these areas."

The diplomatic offensive, which could include the appointment of special envoys, contrasts sharply with President George W. Bush's approach to the volatile region. Bush put less emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict early in his tenure and tended to deal with Middle East problems separately.

In an interview at transition headquarters, Obama was in turn somber about foreign challenges, confident that the massive stimulus package would pass Congress by mid-February and animated about his inaugural address. He said he finished "a good, solid draft" last weekend.

Bristling at Bush

"My job in this speech and in my presidency is just to remind people of the road we've traveled and the extraordinary odds that we've already overcome," he said, calling himself "an emblem" of that progress.

His message to Americans: "We've been through tougher times before, and we're going to get through these."

Obama bristled a bit when asked about Bush's comments in an interview Tuesday suggesting the new president might reconsider his opposition to such antiterrorism tactics as "enhanced" interrogation techniques once he's in the Oval Office.

"I don't make these decisions blindly," Obama replied. Since the election, he noted, he has been receiving the same daily intelligence briefing as Bush. "We're not leaping before we look here. I understand exactly what issues are at stake."

Obama said he was discussing with congressional leaders whether to seek repeal of the Bush tax cuts for families with annual incomes of $250,000 a year or more.

He previously has suggested he would simply wait for them to lapse next year -- which would avoid an early battle with Republicans -- while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday repeated her vow to roll them back this year.

Before deciding how to proceed, he said, "I want to hear more from my economic advisers in terms of whether it will make a difference, a significant difference economically, whether it's done this year or we just let it lapse."

There's no distance between him and Pelosi on another issue: a hard-and-fast deadline to pass the stimulus package, which he confirmed had grown to about $850 billion, by the Presidents' Day recess.