Obama Says US, Allies Discussing Iran Sanctions

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will have scant time to rest up from his eight-day Asia trip. On Saturday, two days after his return to Washington, the Senate plans a make-or-break vote on his hard-fought plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. Obama also confronts a difficult choice on strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan, which will be criticized no matter what he decides. His bid to re-regulate the financial industry faces stiff opposition in Congress. The decision to try high-profile terror suspects in federal courts has drawn withering Republican attacks. And he faces a problematic push by House Democrats for a new and costly jobs bill. A president's job is always busy. But Obama's plate is piled so high that Thanksgiving seems to have come early at the White House. His immediate concern is whether the Senate's 58 Democrats and two independents will stick together to block a Republican filibuster of the massive health care bill. No GOP senators are expected to help, and it's not clear that any Republicans will vote for the final bill itself later this year. Before he left for Asia on Sept. 12, Obama met with wavering Democratic senators, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, whose vote on health care remains in doubt. Asked if the president might call Lincoln soon after returning from South Korea on Thursday, top White House adviser David Axelrod said: "I'm quite certain that if called upon, he's able to do whatever is needed." "Jet lag is not a barrier here," Axelrod said in a phone interview from Air Force One as it headed to Washington. Failure to bring the health care bill to the Senate floor would severely damage Obama's prestige and agenda, and it would prompt a mad scramble by Democratic leaders to pick up the needed votes, probably by tweaking the legislation to the holdouts' liking. Assuming the measure eventually reaches the full Senate, weeks of debate and amendment attempts will follow. Story continues below