First things first, Mr. Obama

The Washington Post asked experts in various fields to give a short take on what the priorities should be for President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. Here are some of them.

Regional diplomacy

President Bush leaves office with the United States bogged down in a huge, unstable and conflict-ridden area from east of Egypt to west of India. To avert involvement in wider violence there, President-elect Barack Obama must rely more on what I call comprehensive regional diplomacy. That means:

1. A readiness to negotiate directly with Iran about its nuclear ambitions and both sides’ regional security concerns, without preconditions and without counterproductive threats of war (though we should keep the option of much more severe sanctions on the table).

2. A revised strategy for Afghanistan that would explore the possibility of local arrangements with various Taliban forces. If local Taliban leaders agree to expel al-Qaida remnants, consider the possibility of a NATO drawdown in those regions.

3. An explicit U.S. diplomatic initiative defining the parameters of a fair Israeli-Palestinian peace, particularly no “right of return,” a genuinely shared Jerusalem, an Israeli return to the 1967 lines with equitable territorial exchanges and a demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps with U.S. peacekeepers.

If comprehensive diplomacy proves productive, the United States will have helped to pacify an increasingly volatile region. If it fails, we will be roughly where we are now: in the middle of a mess.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter.

Help poor children

As President-elect Barack Obama turns his attention to the economy, I hope he will make the needs of the poor, and particularly poor children, a top priority — not just because the poor will be among the hardest hit in the current economic crisis, but because this country needs to end what the Children’s Defense Fund calls “America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline.” Because of our failure to educate children, a black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of eventually going to jail.

We need a massive intervention to educate poor children, starting at birth and staying with them so that they can succeed in school and the workplace. If we do this, these kids will avoid the fate of hundreds of thousands of poor young men and women who fail academically: unemployment, drug abuse, prison. Instead of contributing tax dollars to our society, these young people are contributing to the $62 billion the government spends annually on corrections.

Geoffrey Canada, president, Harlem Children’s Zone.

Restoring U.S. image

The most important challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama is restoring America’s standing in the eyes of the world. He must reinvent the United States as a country that listens, engages with others and has “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” To this end, the following prescription might help reverse the damage of the Bush years:

Stop acting and sounding as if yours is the only way of seeing the world (“you’re either with us or against us”), which makes all disagreement illegitimate or “anti-American.” Don’t define “anti-Americanism” so broadly that you make every critic into an enemy. Recognize that foreigners approach global problems with a different set of assumptions and experiences — and that they might have different priorities that Washington must learn to respect.

Demonstrate openness: Show that, despite internal preoccupations, the United States will never forget its responsibilities to the well-being of the world. Promote international solutions and multilateral institutions to implement them: Never again show the Bush administration’s disdain for the views of the rest of the world.

Shashi Tharoor, former undersecretary general of the United Nations.

Mend fences with Russia

The state of the economy has to be President-elect Barack Obama’s top priority. But repairing fences with Russia should be his most pressing foreign task. I’m afraid the United States has a lot to answer for here. Russia’s August attack on Georgia was nasty, brutish and excessive, but Washington fell into a carefully prepared bear trap for which the West and NATO were totally unprepared.

Bad relations with Moscow are not one-way traffic; they go back to the days of President Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, with all her built-in prejudices against Russia. We rubbed the fallen Russians’ noses in the dirt. These are proud people, and it is hardly surprising that a considerable majority, of all ages, now supports a strongman, Vladimir Putin, in his nationalist defiance of the West. We disregard the Russians’ current mood at our peril. To advance NATO into Russia’s backyard in Ukraine and Georgia was a provocative folly — and, given NATO’s current weakness, a meaningless gesture.

More foolish still was ringing Russia with antiballistic missile sites. The United States could begin by scrapping those costly and possibly ineffectual sites in exchange for meaningful concessions and a restoration of Russian goodwill. As in World War II, Russia should be our ally, not a potential foe.

Alistair Horne, author, “A Savage War of Peace.

Restore the economy

America’s economic vitality must be priority No. 1 because it is the foundation of both our global political power and our military might. Brainpower, innovation and entrepreneurship are the keys to 21st-century prosperity. The new president should focus on pro-growth tax policies, incentives for job creation and investments in innovation, worker re-training and education.

The United States levies the second-highest business tax rate in the world. A lower rate will keep more jobs here. Small business is the engine of economic growth. We must make it easier for small businesses to form, hire and prosper.

We also must enact comprehensive immigration reform so that the United States continues to attract entrepreneurs, risk-takers and hardworking people from all over the world. And we must engage fully in the world if we are to lead. We must embrace free trade with new enthusiasm.

Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and chief executive of Carly Fiorina Enterprises.

Address Afghanistan

President-elect Barack Obama must deal quickly and boldly with Afghanistan. But doing so will require an early initiative to help Pakistan and India settle their differences on Kashmir. The problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable. But Pakistan’s ability to deal with the Taliban and other extremists on its western border is hampered by its preoccupation with India, its traditional adversary to the east. India has resisted U.S. mediation on Kashmir in the past, but the growing U.S.-India strategic relationship may now make American involvement possible.

One intriguing model for Kashmir is the 1998 Belfast agreement, which established a web of overlapping institutions that have allowed the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to in effect share sovereignty over Northern Ireland — and end decades of deep-seated violence.

Meghan O’Sullivan, former deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, 2005-07; lecturer at the Belfer Center, Harvard University.