Events Pull Attention From U.S.

Bush Agenda Ends Up Waiting, Experts Say

He has traveled from coast to coast pitching his Social Security plan, devoting speech after speech and even a rare prime-time news conference to his top legislative priority. But as much as President Bush wants to turn more attention in his second term to domestic policy, the rest of the world keeps forcing itself back onto his agenda.

Whether it be fresh violence in Iraq, threats of new nuclear arsenals in North Korea and Iran, or even unexpected complications in his feel-good trip to Europe this weekend celebrating the end of World War II, Bush keeps finding foreign affairs intruding on his home-front plans.

The president departed for the Baltics and Russia yesterday after a week in which the Gallup polling organization found public support for the Iraq war at its lowest point ever, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's closest and most valuable European ally, won reelection but lost considerable power when more than 60 members of his Labor Party fell victim to strong anti-Iraq war passions.

Bush, who talks often of how his legacy will be linked to the spread of democracy but who also wants a bold domestic accomplishment, has been persuaded by aides that he has about one year to restructure Social Security. After that, aides said, Bush can follow past presidents and spend his time in public talking about global affairs.

But William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said Bush cannot afford to wait, saying the president faces tough decisions on Iran, North Korea and Syria in coming months that require strong public backing. "The president has not made the case for this foreign policy in two or three months," Kristol said. "He has allowed people to forget the argument for the policies, has not highlighted some of the positive developments and . . . is paying a little price for it in the polls."

"For whatever reason," Kristol added, "he has been persuaded that publicly he should be a domestic policy president."

James Dobbins, a longtime diplomat who served as special envoy to such hot spots as Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, said, "It's hard in the second term to make a difference in domestic policy. If you haven't done it by then, it's harder to do it." Bush, he added, seems to be proving that with his Social Security plan. "He hasn't seemed to make much headway, [whereas] he is making some headway in the foreign field."

As Kristol noted, some of the president's most significant accomplishments of the second term's first 100 days came abroad, from the January elections in Iraq to pressuring Syria to withdraw troops from Lebanon after decades of occupation. Moreover, Bush placed his biggest foreign-policy bet of the year by calling for an end to tyranny in his inaugural address and promising to push for democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

But Bush is being forced by circumstance to confront several growing threats that could interfere with his democracy agenda as well as his domestic goals, experts say.

"Right now, one of the defining aspects of this period is lowered barriers to the acquisition of very destructive technologies," said Daniel Benjamin, who served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council. The threats of North Korea and Iran, "two countries perched to be breakthrough" nuclear powers, he added, would dominate any president's time. "You can't wish that away."

The United States has been working with China, Japan, South Korea and Russia to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon, but for weeks U.S. officials have been examining satellite photos that they say may reflect preparations for a nuclear test.

Democrats blame Bush's refusal to engage North Korea one-on-one for the heightened tension this week, while some renewed charges that flawed prewar planning has resulted in a strong, resilient insurgency and more deaths in Iraq.

"As a result of the president's unwillingness to challenge the far right elements of his administration and the Republican Party, the Bush administration has been paralyzed for over four years when it comes to developing an effective policy for dealing with North Korea and Iran," Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement yesterday. Saying the nuclear threat from both countries has increased, Reid added, "The inaction of the Bush administration is simply inexcusable, and has jeopardized the security of all Americans."

Bush plans to address terrorism and nuclear threats when he delivers the commencement address this month at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, aides said.

Perceptions of the Iraq war are proving even more difficult for the White House to manage. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say it was not worth going to war, a new high, according to a recent Gallup survey. A majority of Americans say things are going badly for the United States in Iraq. Matthew Dowd, a top adviser to Bush during the campaign, said recent events on the ground and the president's relative silence on the issue have contributed to driving down Bush's numbers. When there is "bad news or no news," the public essentially becomes divided over the Iraq policy, he said.

Dowd, a pollster, said his data have shown that the president's popularity is linked more to domestic concerns such as high gas prices than progress in Iraq. The news this week out of Iraq was not focused on creating a new government, but rather on the tremendous loss of Iraqi lives as well as a number of U.S. service members.

As Bush was taking off for Europe, CBS was releasing a transcript of a "60 Minutes" interview with Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president faulted both the Iraq war and U.S. efforts to spread democracy. "Democracy cannot be exported to some other place. [Democracy] must be a product of internal domestic development in a society," Putin said, according to the transcript.