EVEN PRESIDENT Obama’s dwindling residue of faithfuls and retainers should not wager on his rewriting the history books in his closing two years. A presidency that began with lofty expectations has devolved into steadily defining them down, at home and abroad. The result has been prolonged paralysis.

At home, emboldened opponents of the White House are blocking spending on the crumbling physical and intellectual infrastructure necessary to stimulate a limping economy and to sustain U.S. power abroad. And while Obama inherited rather than caused many of the world’s current crises, his habitual complacency and passivity prevent him from mitigating or resolving them. Whatever he tries to do on the international front will be tethered by an unavoidable fact: his second-term team is not nearly as strong as his first, and the best among them are now departing. Most depressingly, the president’s almost pathological pattern of consensus building has hardened into concrete, and the interagency process is all about seeking the lowest common denominator. His priority, as far as possible, appears to be avoiding any kind of action abroad that might detract from his out-of-reach domestic agenda. In this context, it’s easy to see why he resists the kind of bold moves essential to fashioning success internationally. Obama flowers in abstract intellectual discourse, but has been defiantly oblivious to hardheaded strategy—plans on what can be accomplished and how. And strategy is the essence of power.

All that said, Americans cannot and should not abandon hope. At home, to be sure, the president is imprisoned in a Vietnam-like tiger cage. His only recourse remains executive orders, a useful device but not nearly enough on important legislative matters. Congress is frozen by the ideological fervor of the Tea Party and by the fear that it generates among moderate Republicans, who might otherwise be tempted to reason and to bargain. Obama may also be on the verge of watching the Senate turn Republican in the midterm elections. Thus, while he may pray for domestic accomplishments, Obama will clasp his hands in vain. Far better he should lift his gaze beyond America’s borders and become a foreign-policy president, an arena in which he can act decisively and effectively to inject some iron into an anemic record.

Even lackluster presidents can still act effectively in the international arena. It’s amazing, but true. Foreign leaders may damn and disdain the man in the Oval Office, but if they want to get anything done or to prevent bad things from happening, they scamper to the White House no matter what they may think of its current inhabitant. For all of America’s woes, for all of Obama’s failures, and for all the American power frittered away over the last two decades, friends and foes alike still look first and last to the United States in times of crisis. And the second decade of the twenty-first century is a time of crisis. Thus, the world remains Obama’s stage in his last two years.

Obama still has the time and the power to stop the terrorists about to lodge themselves in the Middle East, from whence they will threaten the rest of the world. But he must have a good strategy. He also has the opportunity to redefine two troubled and troubling strategic relationships: those with Russia and with the Asia-Pacific region. The first order of business, however, has to be the terrorists, and that will require something even more ambitious than Obama’s recent call for a coalition to combat the Islamic State. It will, in fact, require nothing less than the reinvention of America’s relationship with Iran.

SINCE THE 1979 revolution and hostage crisis, and more still since President George W. Bush’s preposterous “axis of evil” speech in 2002, Americans have singled out Iran as the locus of all evil. Indeed, Iran’s backing of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, support for cruel despots like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and antagonism toward Israel all justify Iran’s place on America’s most-wanted list. Add on top of this a secretive nuclear program and the memory of ghouls like former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and you have a genuine security concern.

Lost in this tenebrous picture, however, is a deeper understanding of the Iran that is—and of the Iran that might be. Underneath a decade of demonization lies an incredibly complicated country, one with a proud linguistic, cultural and political tradition dating back millennia. By any measure, Iran is one of the oldest, most stable and most dynamic countries in the Middle East today. Its population is not nearly as anti-American as those of most of the Sunni Arab nations, and it holds elections, which, though far from perfect, are fairer and freer than those in most countries in the region. It elected President Hassan Rouhani, a palpable reformer. (Can you imagine a reformer being elected in Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Xi Jinping’s China?) Iran is changing in ways neither Americans nor Iranians themselves can fully grasp. That evolution is more likely than not to unveil our underlying strategic commonalities.

The driving force in Iran right now is the need for economic development. And while Iran can look to many places, it continues to stare first at Washington. It knows full well that only the United States can fully restore its economic standing internationally and that the U.S.-led sanctions regime has taken a heavy, but not decisive, toll. That’s the key to U.S. leverage, and economics is the core commonality between the two countries. It is not, however, their only common interest. The two sides also see the main threat in the Middle East basically the same way. It’s the Sunni jihadis who threaten the interests of both, and both believe those jihadis must be neutralized. Both also realize that finding a way to cooperate in this battle will be a tricky enterprise.

These common interests don’t end in the Middle East. In fact, Tehran’s interests coincide with Washington’s on almost every explosive issue in the world except Israel. The list includes Pakistan, perhaps the most dangerous and unstable nuclear power in the world, and Afghanistan, where Tehran and Washington cooperated until Bush, in a fit of hubris, made that cooperation impossible. The only serious conflict is over Israel, and even that should not be an insurmountable obstacle. Traditionally, Iran and Israel have not been foes. Quite the contrary. U.S. strategy, therefore, should be to use cooperation in other areas to ease Tehran’s hostility toward the Jewish state. The United States should be making a basic strategic decision to test whether Iran is prepared to act on its mutual interests with the United States.

Partnering with Iran would allow the West to bring major capabilities to bear on the most pressing threats both to Western security and to Iran itself. Consider the Islamic State. The first push by these crazed but crafty jihadis toward Baghdad and other key cities in Iraq and Syria has been halted in no small part thanks to tacit U.S.-Iranian cooperation. Iran’s drones have flown over Iraq without condemnation from Washington, the United States has armed the Kurdish peshmerga forces and bombed targets in Iraq without opposition from Tehran, and only the united front of American and Iranian diplomatic pressure could have removed former prime minster Nuri Kamal al-Maliki so cleanly after he repeatedly vowed to retain power.

It would be unwise to assume, however, that the halt of these extremists has been anything but temporary. They will stage their own surge unless the United States and self-interested “friends” deliver them a real body blow soon. Any coalition to do fatal damage to the Islamic State must include the Iranians and Assad’s Syria. They feel even more threatened by the jihadis than does the United States, and they can put the necessary boots on the ground in conjunction with American air power and, yes, American special forces, if need be. Other nations can and should be included. This is the time to forge such a coalition and to prove that the jihadis are a relatively small and vulnerable group, one whose bark is more potent than its actual bite—in essence, a terrorist group rather than a caliphate.

Cooperation on the ground in Iraq and Syria is one thing, but the key to any overall thaw with Iran is the interim nuclear agreement. President Obama’s opponents will continue to bellow and gibber that he is a credulous appeaser selling out American interests and pursuing a bad deal just so he can say that he achieved something. They assert that either Iran must capitulate totally or continue to endure crippling sanctions. They might as well demand the abolition of the Islamic Republic. It wouldn’t make any difference; such is the depth of these critics’ naïveté.

When Republican critics of the deal rant about “nuclear breakout capacity,” they willfully forget that Iran is already well on the way to a bomb. Without a deal, it is certain to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability at some point.

No one with any credibility is arguing that a final agreement with Iran would be a panacea to all of our problems with the regime in Tehran. And, of course, Iran might cheat, but it would be far easier for it to develop a weapon without the inspection provisions of the agreement. Its breakout time now is less than what it would be with a deal, and the alternative to one is bleak indeed. The West—and especially Israel—is clearly safer with the agreement than without it.

The only worry—and this is serious—is that Tehran will use the deal to open up economic doors now closed and then restart all its nuclear programs. Iran is right to reckon that once open to the world, it will be hard to isolate again. It would be mistaken, however, to simply assume that it could get away with renuclearization without some real penalties and restrictions from most of the world. While a deal might forfeit a good chunk of American economic leverage, American economic power will never be too far from Iran’s mind.

Under the best of circumstances, Obama will face long odds in gaining congressional approval for a final nuclear deal. If he signs a treaty with Tehran, it will be almost impossible to get sixty-seven votes in the Senate, particularly if the GOP wins a majority in that chamber in the November election. If he signs an executive agreement, the Republican-controlled House will certainly reject it. Israel’s friends will go all-out to oppose the deal. In the face of this resistance, Obama should still conclude the pact with Iran and sell it as hard as he can in America and abroad. His case will be quite strong. One of his strongest selling points will be that almost all of the world will approve of the agreement with Tehran and gain its benefits thereby. For all the strategic benefits for America, this opening with Iran is worth fighting for even if Obama loses.

WHETHER OR not the president dares the Herculean task of reconciliation with Iran, it is well within his scope and powers to undertake some much-needed steps in relations with Russia and the Asia-Pacific region. The first step involves yanking relations with Russia out of the present rut and putting them on a more promising path. The second is to move clearly and decisively to establish a stronger American position in East Asia by actually making the famed “pivot” rather than just allowing matters to hang in limbo for two more years.

President Vladimir Putin deserves the lion’s share of blame for the ongoing troubles in Ukraine. He thought he could make gains in traditional Russian territories by muscling the Ukrainians, and that he could get away with it at little or no cost. But what he got instead was a sustained and unwanted crisis. It would be a dangerous mistake, however, for Westerners to continue to think that the blame was solely his, and that they did nothing to precipitate the conflict.

The majority of Ukrainians wanted further integration into Europe, and Europe indulged them with an association agreement, apparently indifferent or oblivious to the reaction this would generate in Moscow. It was not an offer of admission into the EU, and in fact its principal short-term effect was simply to forestall Ukraine’s inclusion into a Russian-backed trade alliance. The United States was remarkably quiescent about the whole matter, but might have done well to point out that we have all seen this movie before.

In the early 2000s, democratic revolutions brought Western-leaning presidents to power in both Georgia and Ukraine. To reward their anti-Russian turn and to consolidate a security foothold in Russia’s traditional “near abroad,” the Bush administration sought to grant both countries a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). This was to be an interim step on the way to full NATO accession. The effective result would be NATO encirclement of Russia’s western flank.

While other Russo-skeptic nations like Poland firmly backed the MAP scheme, France and Germany staunchly opposed it. They knew that the provocation against Russia would be dangerous and might even invite an unwelcome test of NATO’s commitment to its Article 5 collective-defense obligations. The matter came to a head at NATO’s Budapest summit in April 2008, where a compromise was struck that denied MAPs to Ukraine and Georgia, but instead offered a promise of NATO accession sometime in the unspecified future.

This vague promise was intended both as a polite “no” and as a face-saving gesture for the United States, but it did little to assuage Russian concerns that its periphery was drifting west. The Budapest deal was one of many tit-for-tat provocations that led to the war in Georgia later that year, but the big picture was as clear for Georgia as it is for Ukraine today. When the West tries to pry off bits of the “near abroad,” it is playing with fire, and it must remember that Russia can and will go to great lengths to preserve its regional hegemony.

The current crisis in Ukraine centers, of course, on the EU rather than NATO, but in Putin’s mind these entities are interlinked. As he stated in his March 18 address announcing the annexation of Crimea, Russian forces will not “travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors.” Russia has demonstrated repeatedly that it will use everything from clandestine asymmetrical tactics to all-out war to preserve its sphere of influence.

Georgians and Ukrainians who wish to live more free and prosperous lives as “Europeans” are done a tremendous disservice by the West when their security is imperiled by half promises, whether about the EU or NATO, that the West has no intention of keeping. They may not like having Russia as a bullying neighbor, but they ignore this fact of life at their peril.

The way out of the crisis in Ukraine is to put on the table some diplomatic understandings. Most importantly: Russia stands down its military role in Ukraine (save in Crimea, where its power is fully consolidated), and Ukraine does not join NATO or the EU. Greater regional autonomy for Ukraine’s Southeast will likely be part of that solution too, but the devil will be in the details, as Kiev rightly fears that too much decentralization will retard growth and open the door to further Russian interference in its domestic affairs. Then, on that basis, we can and should work jointly with Moscow on righting Ukraine’s limping economy. Ukraine can’t get back to any degree of normalcy unless we take these steps. While the country is on a war footing, it will never be able to sustain the focus required to address its own domestic problems.

Speaking openly and honestly about Ukraine’s geopolitical options is not the same as giving up on its European dream. As a practical matter, the West is going to play a greater and greater role there unless Russia strengthens itself economically, which its kleptocracy seems incapable of doing. Radical attempts to pull Kiev to the West, however, will inevitably be undone by a Kremlin that despises and fears revolution, is anxious about its standing in the world and has no qualms about terrorizing its neighbors. If and only if Russia can be made to believe that neither Ukraine nor Georgia poses an existential security risk will the fight for democracy and economic opportunity within these countries have a chance at succeeding.

FINALLY, THERE is Asia. The pivot to Asia ain’t what it used to be, because Asia didn’t turn out to be what it was supposed to be. Over the last twenty years or so, it became a mantra in the West that Asia would become the center of the economic universe, but by 2010 unprecedented growth in China and the rest of Asia had slowed considerably. Asia has come back to economic and political reality; it is a region much better off than it used to be, but far from a new paradise. That said, it still outstrips Europe and Latin America and is second only to North America economically. Trade and investment will continue to find their way to this part of the world.

Asia will also attract unprecedented attention for another reason—the growing geopolitical competition among its principal powers. In the last five to ten years, tensions have increased between the following pairs of states: China and India, China and Malaysia, China and Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, China and the Philippines, and Japan and China. The last pair is perhaps the most worrisome. China is arming itself at an alarming pace, boosting its military spending by more than 10 percent each year. Japan has also been increasing its military spending. Even with its traditional cap of 1 percent of GDP, it has managed to amass the most technologically sophisticated navy and air force in the region.

The United States needs to strengthen its military presence in the region. The purpose is not to threaten China; it is to reassure all parties that differences (and there are substantial differences on many issues) are not going to be settled by military force. U.S. power should be deployed to convey a calming effect and to reassure the region that no state is going to be intimidated into subservience. This will be a delicate task, advanced as much by rhetoric and diplomacy as by naval maneuvers. Obama would do well not to delay it. And though Asia did not turn out to be an economic gold mine, it is at the very least a silver mine that will command the attention of the world for decades to come.

The United States is in the middle of trade negotiations with Asian and Latin American states that seem to be stalled. Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative, has been doing a great job trying to push matters along, but he will need major help from his president and from Congress to see that the next two years do not go down the drain. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the best hope for increasing regional trade, and regional trade is the best hope for powering U.S. economic growth. All these constitute good reasons for Obama to focus on the Asia pivot.

The agenda proposed here—the opening to Iran, the fight against the jihadis, exploring diplomacy with Russia regarding Ukraine, and reinvigorating the pivot to Asia—does not represent an impossible dream. It can be accomplished by a wounded president without the services of a Brent Scowcroft or a James Baker. It can be done in the last two years of a second presidential term. It requires only a president who understands that he has the power to act if he puts strategies together with precision and explains them clearly to the American people and the world.

Leslie H. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former New York Times columnist, and a former senior Defense and State Department official. He wishes to thank his research associate John T. Nelson for his contributions to this article.