(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s appearance in New York on Monday for a packed program of international meetings promises to be more of a test than his previous outings onto the global stage.
 
After eight years of an administration that regarded the United Nations more of a hindrance than a help, Obama’s high-profile embrace of the world body should be warmly welcomed by many of the gathered leaders.
 
But his to-do list is long and difficult, and some important relationships have come under strain in recent weeks, at a time when building cooperation to tackle global challenges is as crucial as ever.
 
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s debut U.N. visit will make it difficult to divert attention away from the diplomatic rift between Washington and London over the Lockerbie convict’s release. Top administration officials unsuccessfully urged Britain last month not to free Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who is reportedly dying of cancer.
 
As Libya is a non-permanent member of the Security Council, Gaddafi will join Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others during a special summit of the 15-member body on Thursday.
 
The leaders of two other allies whose relations with the U.S. have been rattled recently will be present in New York. Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Czech President Vaclav Klaus are both scheduled to speak during the General Assembly general debate on Wednesday.
 
The administration late last week announced it would not deploy components of a ballistic missile defense shield in the two countries, dropping the Bush administration’s proposal to build protection against Iranian long-range missiles in favor of a “smarter, safer and swifter” one focusing on a short- and medium-range missile threat. Kaczynski and Klaus both supported the original plans.
 
Despite Moscow’s strong and vocal opposition to the plan Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both insisted that the decision was “not about Russia.”
 
Still, although the two European governments put a brave face on the shift, analysts and media commentators in the two countries saw the decision very clearly as a concession to Moscow, with some tabloid media characterizing the move as a sellout – even as “betrayal.”
 
The timing of the news – on the day Poland was marking the 70th anniversary of the Red Army’s invasion – also raised eyebrows, given the cool relations today between Moscow and Warsaw. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called it “clumsy.”
 
Poles “need to review our view of America,” said former president Lech Walesa, who earlier this year signed a letter expressing concern about Obama’s approach towards the region.
 
Obama is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in New York on Wednesday. No similar meetings with the Polish or Czech leaders have been announced.
 
Climate: squalls ahead
 
The U.N. program begins for Obama with a summit Tuesday on climate change, hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who hopes to build momentum ahead of a major climate conference scheduled for Copenhagen in December.

Ban has been issuing dark warnings about the ramifications if the Copenhagen meeting does not produce a far-reaching agreement to combat emissions of “greenhouse gases” blamed for climate change.
 
“We have just four months,” he said in a speech in South Korea last month. “Four months to secure the future of our planet.”
 
The Bush administration was accused of blocking efforts to save the earth from what “global warming” proponents said was looming catastrophe, and Obama came to office promising a new start.
 
Eight months later, however, U.S. allies are leading criticism of delays by the U.S. Senate to pass climate change legislation after the House approved a bill in early summer.
 
If the Senate does not pass legislation ahead of the Copenhagen summit, European Union ambassador to the U.S. John Bruton said late last week, “it would open the United States to the charge that it does not take its international commitments seriously, and that these commitments will always take second place to domestic politics.”
 
Noting that the U.S. “emits 25 percent of all the greenhouse gases that the conference is trying to reduce,” Bruton asked, “Is the U.S. Senate really expecting all the other countries to make a serious effort on climate change at the Copenhagen conference in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?”
 
With Tuesday’s all-day meeting open to the full U.N. membership, the U.S. is likely to take flak from several directions.
 
U.S. ambassador Susan Rice told a briefing at the White House Friday that climate change was one of four broad priorities for the administration at the world body, along with peacekeeping, development and nonproliferation.
 
She said Obama would have the opportunity Tuesday “to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to addressing the challenge of climate change, and discuss solutions with a truly diverse global audience at the highest levels.”
 
The big speech
 
A high point of Obama’s U.N. trip will be his address on Wednesday morning to a General Assembly packed with world leaders, including 86 heads of state and 36 heads of government according to a U.N. spokesman.
 
Obama is second on the list of speakers, after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and before Gaddafi. Other speakers of note later in the day include Brown, Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
 
The roster also includes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made headlines again Friday with fresh comments attacking Israel and calling the Holocaust a “myth,” and the recently ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.
 
Venezuela’s U.S.-baiting President Hugo Chavez does not appear on the list. Chavez, who caused a stir at the U.N. in 2006 by calling President Bush “the devil,” said on his weekly radio and TV broadcast Sunday he was still mulling whether to attend this year’s event.
 
Rice said Friday that a key theme of Obama’s speech would be that, facing a pressing array of global challenges “we can’t afford to get bogged down in the traditional north-south or other customary divisions that have hindered effective international cooperation.”
 
“Everybody has a responsibility. The U.S. is leading anew, and we’re looking to others to join.”
 
Rice noted during the briefing that the U.N. comprises 192 nations.
 
“We work with the vast majority of countries on the basis of both mutual interest and mutual respect to try to bridge old divides and resist the efforts of a handful of customary spoilers to prevent shared progress.”
 
In its latest “Freedom in the World” survey the democracy watchdog Freedom House rates 88 U.N. member states, or 46 percent of the total, as “free.”
 
Nuclear focus, but not on ‘any specific countries’
 
On Thursday, Obama chairs a meeting of the Security Council on the subject of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. Taking advantage of the fact the U.S. holds the rotating presidency this month, he will be the first American president to lead a council meeting of that level, with members represented by heads of state and government.
 
Rice said the goal would be to get agreement on a “meaningful, comprehensive” new council resolution.
 
A concept paper issued by Rice says the meeting will aim to bolster support for disarmament and nonproliferation efforts and treaties, among them the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty which the U.S. and other key countries have yet to ratify, and “and to work towards a world without nuclear weapons.”
 
But the paper also makes it clear that the event will not directly confront the two most pressing nuclear-related situations, involving Iran and North Korea: “The Security Council summit will focus on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly and not focus on any specific countries.”