One year after President Barack Obama's inauguration, he has had mixed achievements. In some respects, he has pleased left wingers and liberals both in America and around the world with some progressive policy achievements. On others, he has served to disappoint.

Obama came into office with high hopes. The 'change' and 'yes, we can' campaign slogans raised high expectations amongst both Democratic Party supporters and the wider American electorate that Obama could deliver solutions to some key American problems. Issues like health care, nuclear disarmament, climate change, a downbeat economy and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan confronted him upon assuming office.

From the outset, Obama attempted to deal with these issues in a determined manner. Within months he had signed off on a massive Keynesian-style fiscal stimulus worth US$1Trillion - and it now appears to be delivering dividends in terms of falling unemployment. In Prague he announced that it was the long-term desire of the United States to see an end to nuclear weapons and he chaired a UN Security Council session on the issue late last year. He signed an executive order to close down Guantanamo Bay by January 1st this year, a facility he had declared during the campaign to be 'a stain' on America's reputation. Working with Democratic Congressional leaders, Obama spurred on the recent legislative effort on health reform. Obama also took on the titans of Wall Street and the banks for stuffing their pockets with bonuses while millions of working class Americans lost their homes. His nomination of Justice Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the US Supreme Court went smoothly. And to top it all off, he controversially won the Nobel Peace Prize.

For a first year, first term president, these are considerable achievements. Some commentators are already pointing out that his legislative and policy accomplishments could equal those of former President Lyndon B. Johnson who, in his first year of office in 1964, steered the Medicare and civil rights legislation through Congress.

But before anyone gets too heedy, let's also check out Obama's failures during his first year.

One of the most spectacular was his about face on Guantanamo and human rights issues. As of today (January 24th) Guantanamo remains open for business (while admittedly not taking any more prisoners). Obama has also (at the urging of his gung ho national security team) reversed his earlier stance on extraordinary renditions (i.e. kidnappings) of terrorism suspects by American intelligence agencies. At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Obama was only able to cobble togerther a weak deal which only promised that nations would declare their emissions targets by the end of this month. And on health care, he has wobbled as right wing Democrats (influenced by health industry lobbyists) have seen him abandon a publicly-funded health insurance option for those who cannot afford private cover.

Because of this reversal on the health care issue, just last week, liberal Democrat voters in Massachussetts stayed at home during the special election (by-election) held to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. This gave the Republican Scott Brown an historic victory over Democrat challenger Martha Coakley.  While the Republicans will see this win as vindication of their anti-healthcare reform stance, they should be careful. This is the case as this Republican victory now threatens to scuttle health care reform once again but they should remember that most Americans still favour health care reform and should they continue to oppose it, they do so at their peril. Under Congressional rules, 60 votes are needed to break any parliamentary filibuster that might be attempted by the Republicans to defeat the Bill. With Massachussetts gone, the Democrats now have 59 votes, not enough to prevent one. Alternative plans are being hatched to get around this hurdle as Scott is expected to take up his seat within weeks. If Obama's signature reform measure is defeated, then he could be forced to move even more to the right as Bill Clinton had to following the Republicans victory in the 1994 Congressional elections.

The possibility that Obama could be forced to follow a more 'third way' path is worrying. After all, the third way ideology has been rejected by voters in New Zealand, Germany and Canada. If Obama were to take up the Bill Clinton/Tony Blair line, then he could be ejected from office after only one term.

The biggest overseas tests for Obama are Iraq and Afghanistan. While he has pledged to completely withdraw combat troops from Iraq by later this year, he has pledged that there will still be a residual US military presence there. Effectively, in the economic, social, political and military sense, Iraq will remain an American colony, even under Obama. Afghanistan looks likely to share the same fate as while Obama has made noises about withdrawing American troops by mid-2011, he still has to face up to a resurgent Taliban. The possibility of Afghanistan becoming a real quagmire (even with the new troop surge) still remains. It could end up being what Vietnam was to LBJ - "that goddamned war," as Johnson once famously quipped. That's why he should opt to stop all US interference in Afghanistan and agree to the sending of a Muslim-dominated UN peacekeeping mission to that country.

Obama was asked recently by a  US network television interviewer as to how he rated his first 12 months. He responded that he would give himself an A-. Well, I would give him a B- for at least performing better than George W Bush but still more work needed.

Obama can do better.