If the fury of activity in Iraq this week is any indication, President Bush is making a quick transition from the campaign trail back into the oval office to address a number of challenges confronting his administration over the next four years.

“Whoever is president is going to have a mess to deal with,” said assistant University of Wisconsin political science professor Jon Pevehouse, referring to the violence and instability plaguing Iraq and the obstacles U.S. forces continue to face there.

But the president has said he is ready to launch an aggressive, and eventually successful, military campaign in Iraq, using the “political capital” he inherited Election Day.

After losing the popular vote last time around, Bush is now relishing in a win over John Kerry by more than 3 million votes. It is that clear margin of victory that gives the administration a certain level of “vindication” for their job in office over the last four years and for their policies at home and abroad.

“There is a sense that we won; we clearly won,” said UW political science professor Charles Franklin, adding the president’s victory constitutes a type of popular mandate for his second term.

“I don’t think there is anything [in the election results] that would make the White House cautious,” Franklin said, adding Bush will likely continue to push his first-term policies into the second. “I would expect to see more of the same”

Indeed, many expect the president will be even more aggressive in promoting his agenda over the next four years, particularly since Bush no longer needs to worry about seeking re-election in 2008.

“The president is going to think he has a much freer hand,” Pevehouse said. “I think he thinks he has a mandate, and that stretches from foreign to domestic policy.”

And it is overseas, particularly in the Middle East, where Bush may advance his policy agenda more than anywhere else. Developments in Iraq this past week, most particularly the U.S. military invasion of Fallujah to retake control from rebel insurgents fighting there, seem to indicate American forces will come out in full force to ensure the war in Iraq ends successfully.

Pevehouse said he expects to see similar U.S. military campaigns to uproot rebel forces in Iraq over the coming months, particularly as the country prepares for democratic elections. However, though the administration will likely push hard to “clean up Iraq,” U.S. military forces remain prepared for an uphill battle to secure and stabilize the country.

“We have got some hard times ahead,” Pevehouse said. “I think it’s going to be a slow battle against the insurgents … It’s going to be 10 U.S. troops dying a week, five U.S. troops dying a week. And in some ways that could be the worst thing to happen. It will be a slow bleeding.”

Pevehouse added U.S. forces will probably remain in charge of Iraq’s security for years to come and may also have a heavy hand in the political process there. He said success in Iraq is necessary to ensure the administration’s strategy to combat terror is not deemed a failure by the public.

And there is Bush’s legacy to think about as well.

Foreign-policy matters, even more than domestic issues, can determine the way history remembers and regards a former president, according to Pevehouse. But the unstable situation in Iraq and the polarized U.S. electorate indicated by this year’s close election makes building a successful Bush legacy a particularly difficult proposition in the coming years.

“He is in the dangerous position of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s except he doesn’t have a landslide victory. He has a simmering war on his hands,” Franklin said. “He needs to be concerned for his legacy [in terms of] how Iraq turns out.”

But despite the focus placed on Iraq, policies at home are not likely to be placed on the backburner by the administration.

Bush has stated he will continue to push educational accountability in American schools and has promised additional funding for the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, the Bush administration is likely to try to put its political mark on the Supreme Court by appointing a justice to fill Chief Justice Rehnquist’s place once he retires.

Indeed, though foreign affairs dominated the president’s concerns — and those of the country — for the past few years, domestic issues may be where Bush believes he can make his most important mark.

“He seems to genuinely think that the tax cuts are his legacy,” Franklin said, adding Bush’s repeated efforts to make his tax breaks permanent perhaps indicate his influence over the American economy’s future is where Bush will have the most lasting effect.

And in light of the continuing violence in Iraq, and the beginning of what many experts believe will be a long and difficult fight against international terrorism, it is perhaps on the domestic front where the Bush administration can bank on the best chance for success.

“He needs to have some positive victories,” Franklin said.