I would be very suprised if an obama admistration sanctioned military action against Iran, North Korea or any other troublesome state. The rhetoric has already shifted away from "evil" and "evildoers".
I might be horribly disappointed. I was with Tony Blair (I'm a brit), we had our own obama moment 12 years ago when an idealistic, optimistic young liberal stormed the elections and ended a miserable decade of tory governance. And 12 years later... we seem to have ended up with a repressive police state and we're mired in two wars. Didn't see that coming.
Are wars really increasing? After the fairly disasterous excursions in afghanistan and Iraq, government and the general public seem to have lost their appetite for invading far away lands.
Positive changes... well, I was pleased to see India decrimanlise homosexuality this week. As much as people focus on a historical backdrop of war, violence and oppression, its encouraging to remember that socially we've come along way in terms of learning to accept other ways of life, and enshrining those rights in law. The worst excesses of the last 100 years shouldn't overshadow the fact that we've seen universal suffrage, civil rights, and huge advances in sexual equality and tolerance of culture and individual difference.
So to bring it full circle back to the cairo speech that started this discussion - I thought it was a speech to be proud of. Promoting tolerance and understanding isn't something to dismiss so easily. It matters.