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 last week.More than a few called the speech a “non-event”,
particularly given the remarkably little media attention it received overshadowed as it was by the growing excitement of the
Democratic and Republican campaigns to succeed him.Charles Kupchan, a policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations said “President Bush’s State of the Union was noteworthy for not being particularly noteworthy.” He 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.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 per cent — 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 chancesAt the same time, however, he retains enough Republican support to turn back 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 US 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.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 US forces in Iraq.In his address, Bush re-affirmed his commitment to reduce US 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”.As has become increasingly clear in recent weeks, General David Petraeus and his field commanders oppose proposals by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs to continue drawing down US 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.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 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 t