With just less than one year left in his presidency, George W. Bush remains as focused as ever on the Middle East and Iraq and appears reluctant to take on any major new foreign policy challenges in the time that he remains in power.
That appears to be the consensus of most analysts here in the wake of Bush's last State of the Union address, which was delivered in the stately Capitol building Monday night.
More than a few called the speech a "non-event", particularly given the remarkably little media attention it received -- both immediately before and after his appearance -- overshadowed as it was by the growing excitement of the Democratic and Republican campaigns to succeed him.
"President Bush's State of the Union was noteworthy for not being particularly noteworthy," said Charles Kupchan, a policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, who added that the narrowness of Bush's treatment of foreign policy -- confined as it was almost exclusively to the "war on terror" and Iraq -- was one of the most remarkable aspects of the address.
"The role of America's traditional allies, the more assertive stance of Russia, the rise of China, India, and other countries, recent developments in Latin America – these topics received scant attention," he said. "It looks as if addressing these challenges will have to await the next U.S. president."
While Bush himself seemed to be in high spirits and good humour, the hour-long speech -- most of which was devoted to domestic issues -- consisted mainly of shop-worn nostrums, especially his democratic messianism which even some of his staunchest supporters described as hollow-sounding in light of the reverses, particularly in the Middle East, of the past two years.
Saddled with the lowest sustained public-approval ratings -- currently hovering around 29 percent -- of any president in more than 50 years, as well as a Congress controlled by Democrats, Bush definitely falls into the category of a "lame duck", made even more lame by the fact that he has no chosen successor and that, despite their lusty cheering during his address, many Republican lawmakers consider him a political albatross for their own re-election chances.
At the same time, however, he retains enough Republican support to turn back -- as he did repeatedly last year -- Democratic efforts to enact legislation that would force him to reverse or substantially modify existing foreign policy, particularly with respect to Iraq.
Thus, the outlook for 2008 is for continued deadlock between a Democratic Congress that favours a relatively rapid withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq and greater diplomatic efforts to engage its neighbours, including Iran and Syria, and a president who believes as strongly as ever that last year's controversial "surge" of 30,000 additional troops there has enabled him to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and that even talking to Washington's regional foes is morally repugnant.
Indeed, his refusal to consider major modifications in his Iraq and Iran policy, in particular, over the next year was made abundantly clear Monday even before his speech.
After signing a defence authorisation bill earlier in the day, Bush issued a statement asserting that he was free to disregard several of its provisions, including one that would bar funding for military installations that would provide "permanent stationing" of U.S. forces in Iraq.
In his address, Bush re-affirmed his commitment to reduce U.S. troops levels in Iraq to pre-surge levels of about 130,000 by August, but he also declared that any further reductions will depend "on conditions in Iraq and the recommendations of our commanders".
"General (David) Petraeus has warned that too fast a drawdown could result in the disintegration of the Iraqi security forces, al Qaeda-Iraq regaining lost ground (and) a marked increase in violence," he added, warning Congress once again against setting any timetable for withdrawal that could jeopardise the progress Petraeus' counter-insurgency strategy has achieved in pacifying key parts of the country.
As has become increasingly clear in recent weeks, Petraeus and his field commanders oppose proposals by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs to continue drawing down U.S. forces to as few as 100,000 by the time Bush's successor takes office.
And while, with respect to Iran, Bush eschewed the "axis of evil" moniker for which his 2002 State of the Union address will be long remembered, his words still sounded like an ultimatum seemingly calculated to evoke a negative response.
"Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear," he declared. "Verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin. And to rejoin the community of nations, come clean about your nuclear intentions and past actions, stop your oppression at home, cease your support for terror abroad. But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops. We will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf."
In spite of the harshness of that tone, however, hawkish commentators complained that, like Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric, his demands sounded toothless and that he did not even mention the second surviving member of the "axis", North Korea, with which his administration began direct negotiations last year.
"[His] words on Iran last night rang hollow because his diplomacy has neither stopped Tehran's nuclear programme nor cowed its larger regional ambitions," the neo-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote Tuesday. "Without far tougher sanctions and more, Mr. Bush runs the risk of being the President who allowed the mullahs to realise their nuclear programme."
Similarly, his re-affirmation that his administration and he personally "will do ...everything we can to help ...achieve a peace agreement that defines a Palestinian state by the end of this year" -- the one major new diplomatic initiative undertaken by Bush in the last few months -- was received sceptically here, as it was when the president toured the Middle East earlier this month.
"I was pleased to see Bush emphasise the importance of a deal in his speech," said Steve Clemons, head of the American Strategy programme of the New America Foundation, "but he didn't outline how were going to get to success, and the absence of some key players in the (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations process practically assures future convulsions..."
"What is one to make of Bush's apparent confidence in the imminent advent of peace between Israel and a 'democratic Palestine'?" asked Clifford May, president of the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defence of Democracies. "Surely the chances for that are about equal to those for real Social Security reform (and) passage of a comprehensive immigration bill," -- two of Bush's major second-term priorities on which he has apparently given up.
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