As President-Elect Barack Obama becomes President Obama today in what will be one of the most anticipated presidential inaugurations in memory, the United States enters what much of the world hopes will be a new era and a new style of American leadership.

But as hopes mount around the world for a radical quantum shift in US foreign policies, such hopes should be tempered with a dose of realism. Beyond any doubt, many things will go wrong over the next four years. Events that no one could possibly anticipate will take place – bombs will explode, the economy, fickle as it is, will fluctuate, and Mr Obama will undoubtedly make mistakes.

But whether history will, by the close of his term, judge him to have been a great president or not is beside the point. The point is that he will be a new kind of president and a president for his times.

There will be a great deal of pressure on Mr Obama as he takes office today amid an 80 per cent approval rating, as opposed to outgoing President Bush’s 22 per cent. From the outset he will undoubtedly need to begin tackling outstanding domestic issues, and the to-do list is both daunting and sobering.

He inherits an economy falling ever deeper into a recession, a practically crippled banking system, an effectively bankrupt car industry, a housing market in an advanced state of decomposition and a budget deficit already in orbit even before the $800 billion stimulus package is factored in.

The new president will be aware that he can’t do everything at once. He could very well be expected to make the economy his priority, while placing some issues on the back-burner and others in the hands of his Cabinet members.

He will also need to set about healing the gaping wounds left in America’s foreign relations inflicted by the outgoing administration. One of the creeds of the incoming administration is to “renew American global leadership” and, so far, he seems to have most of the world on his side.

For starters, it appears he intends closing the highly controversial Guantanamo Bay detention centre within his first week in office. He also plans outlawing water-boarding and other controversial CIA interrogation tactics, and forcing the Agency to abide by military rules regulating interrogation techniques.

Another point, one that could be expected to be placed in the lap of incoming Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, which will require immediate attention, is the Middle East, on which Mr Obama has remained, correctly, silent since Israeli aggression in Palestine began. And although Israeli troops are expected to have pulled out of the beleaguered Gaza Strip before he takes office today, the situation is a hornet’s nest requiring the kind of immediate attention that has so sorely been missing from the outgoing Bush administration in recent weeks.

Europe had strongly supported Mr Obama’s candidacy following the last eight years of what they consider to have been misguided decisions that have left dire repercussions on the rest of the world. But he will have his work cut out for him in repairing America’s international image, and in rebuilding ties with traditional allies, mainly European countries, which have become strained under the outgoing administration.

But one should not expect too much from President Obama on his first day, littered as it will be with official engagements – a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and no fewer than 10 official balls to attend. Tomorrow will, however, be different with just two final inaugural events and a White House event for hundreds of guests – after which the day is expected to be dedicated to enacting policy shifts.

On a local note, Republican Ambassador Molly Bordonaro, whose term symbolically expires today, has been one of the most successful and popular US and non-US ambassadors to Malta, and she will leave the country with a number of major accomplishments to her credit – a double taxation treaty, a visa waiver agreement, crucial assistance for Malta’s Customs Department, a permanent refugee resettlement programme and with the construction of a new embassy underway. It is hoped Mr Obama’s Democratic appointee, whoever he or she may be, will follow in her footsteps and possibly even solidify relations further.