Photo Gallery Obama's Foreign Policy Challenges
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were fierce opponents during the Democratic presidential primaries leading up to the 2008 US election. But after Obama won, they buried the hatchett and he chose Clinton as his Secretary of State.
Syria, which has devolved into bloody civil war, will be one of Obama's first challenges. Here a Syrian rebel guard stands next to a comrade praying during a break in fighting in the northern city of Aleppo.
Obama must also strike a balance between the Israelis and the Palestinians in order to maintain stability in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged more Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Here, a settler builds a hut near his house on a hill in a small outpost near the settlement of Kiryat Arba next to the West Bank city of Hebron in July 2011.
