Obama Trip Abroad, A Look Ahead

AMMAN, Jordan – Barack Obama begins his five-country swing through the Middle East and Europe today with what his advisors expect will be a wide-ranging one-on-one talk with Jordan’s King Abdullah here at Beit al Urdan, the king’s residence.

The tour is an audition of sorts on the world stage for the presumptive Democratic nominee and is also intended to show American voters that Obama has a full grasp of world issues. Obama leads his rival John McCain in polls overall but trails him in the area of foreign policy.

During the half-hour meeting, which will be attended by an American “notetaker”, Obama and the king will discuss matters of regional stability and the Israeli-Palestinian issue among others, advisors said. Adbullah, who requested the one-on-one meeting, the first between the two men, is returning early from a trip to the U.S. to meet with the Illinois senator.

Jordan is a key ally in the region and an important ally in the war on terror, and the country would likely play a role in helping maintain stability after the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. There are hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

The senator is scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon on a V-22 aircraft, landing at Marka, a joint military-civilian field. He will later hold a press conference at the Amman Citadel with Sens. Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed, who accompanied him on the congressional delegation to Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. The three men will hold a press conference shortly after their arrival, after which Obama will meet with the king.

Obama will later dine with the king, Queen Rania and several American and Jordanian officials, including Hagel and Reed; American embassy representative Dan Rubinstein; Gen. Scott Gration; Dr. Bassem Awadallah, the head of Jordan’s royal court; his royal highness Lt. Gen. Fesial, the king’s brother and a former commander of the air force; the Jordanian Ambassador to the U.S. Seid Ra’ad and Lt. Gen. Mohammad Dhahabi; the director of the country’s main intelligence agency.

Tuesday's busy schedule

The senator has a jam-packed schedule Tuesday in Israel where he will meet first with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, then with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, visit the Holocaust museum and memorial at Yad Veshim, meet with Pres. Shimon Peres. Obama then heads to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, on to Sderot and then will meet in the evening with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He will also meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at some point tomorrow. It is not yet clear whether Obama will have a chance to visit the Western Wall, an important religious site in Jerusalem.

It is important for Obama to visit Sderot, a border town that has come under repeated rocket attacks from Hamas, advisors said.

“The significance is self-evident,” said a senior advisor. “It’s a place in which Israel’s security is every day at risk and threatened and Sen. Obama will have the opportunity to see that firsthand and to get a very personal feel for the everyday implications of that insecurity for the residents of Sderot.”

Obama’s trip to Israel is important in calming the concerns among some American Jewish voters about whether he will be a friend to Israel. Advisers were careful when asked by reporters to restate Obama’s stance on Jerusalem, an issue that caused some headache for him after a speech to AIPAC last month.

“He’s repeatedly said that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be negotiated by the parties, that Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital, but that it should not again be divided with barbed wire and checkpoints as it was between 1948 and 1967,” said an advisor.

Obama then heads to Germany, France and Great Britain, where it was announced he would be meeting with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, in addition to current Prime Minister Gordon Brown and with opposition leader David Cameron.

Obama was not scheduled to attend any fundraisers while abroad, the advisors said.

Berlin speech

The advisors were pressed repeatedly on the size, scope and character of Obama’s planned speech on transatlantic relations in Berlin.

“There’s a great deal of interest in his visit. We want to accommodate that interest,” said Chief Strategist David Axelrod when asked about the thousands of people expected at the event.

Advisors said the content of the speech would speak for itself and stressed that the simple fact that large numbers of people were expected to attend does not make it a “campaign speech” because it has nothing to do with campaigns.

(NBC/NJ's ATHENA JONES)