US: Many of Bush's foreign policy efforts lie in tatters, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, President Bush turned his attention to the Middle East, as he had promised British and Arab leaders before the war, and on June 4th he brought his Texas-style diplomacy to a summit meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers.
It was a high point of American foreign policy. Since then however the Arab-Israeli conflict has erupted into near-war, and the US effort lies in tatters.
Indeed wherever Mr Bush looks, many of his major military and diplomatic initiatives of recent months have also run into serious trouble.
Six weeks ago the President flew onto an aircraft carrier to declare that the US-led coalition had prevailed over Iraq and combat operations were over, allowing reconstruction to begin.
Yesterday two aircraft were lost in growing combat in Iraq, where 33 US troops have died in hostile fire since Mr Bush's victory declaration.
Many have been killed by guerrilla groups loyal to Saddam Hussein who is still alive, according to Mr Ahmed Chalabi, head of the pro-US Iraqi National Congress speaking in Washington yesterday.
The American effort at setting up an Iraqi political authority has been postponed in the general chaos and a Senate committee yesterday heard evidence from former US ambassador Mr Peter Galbraith, just back from Baghdad, that the post-conflict debacle in Iraq was due to grave miscalculations at the Pentagon.
The reason for going to war is now coming under serious scrutiny.
The latest Gallup poll shows that confidence in pre-war assertions by senior Bush aides about the danger posed by Iraq is waning.
Every day new revelations emerge about hyped intelligence to gain public and international support.
Yesterday the Washington Post revealed that the claim by Mr Bush in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger was based on evidence which the CIA knew almost a year earlier was forged.
In Afghanistan the Taliban is reasserting itself - with bloody consequences this week for German peacekeepers - and on the Korean peninsula the threat of catastrophe has not lessened.
The huge set-back in the US peace initiative in the Middle East seems to have left the administration paralysed.
Mr Bush has not intervened personally, though observers look to America as the only force powerful enough to have any influence.
Busy with domestic issues in Connecticut yesterday, he instructed Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and national security adviser Ms Condoleezza Rice to work the phones to urge both sides to pull back.
The involvement of Ms Rice was intended to show pro-Israeli hawks in the administration, mainly the Pentagon, that the White House and the State Department were at one on Middle East strategy. The strategy has shifted in response to the rapidly-moving events.
President Bush said on Tuesday he was "troubled" by the Israeli helicopter gunship attack on a Hamas leader, Mr Abdel Aziz Rantisi, which many in Washington took as an attack on the road map itself.
The US was reportedly told by the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, last week that Israel would only attack Palestinian targets to thwart a terrorist attack and they did not see the attempted assassination of Mr Abdel Rantisi as fitting that criterion.
The leading pro-Israeli lobby, AIPAC, then issued a rare criticism of Mr Bush for his rebuke, saying the US should "support the people of Israel in their struggle against terror".
Such pressure is taken seriously by the influential Bush re-election strategist Mr Karl Rove, who is depending on support from the pro-Israeli alliance of Christian evangelicals and American Jews in the 2004 election.
Israeli officials appeared on news broadcasts to argue that Mr Rantisi was urging a massive attack on Israel and the raid was therefore justifiable, and this view found sympathy among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
"Israel has no choice but to use force itself" if the Palestinians did not stop the violence, said Congressman Tom Lantos from California.
Democrat Gary Ackerman of New York suggested that Mr Bush's rebuke of Israel smacked of hypocrisy, as America was doing "the exact same thing" in its war on terrorism.
Yesterday after the bus bombing and the anti-Bush reaction in Congress, White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer declined an invitation to repeat the President's warning to Israel that rocket attacks on Gaza could set back Israel's own security.
He told reporters: "The issue is not Israel, the issue is not the Palestinian Authority, the issue is terrorists who are killing in an attempt to stop the process."
Mr Powell will not return to the Middle East before June 22nd when he will attend a meeting of the road map "Quartet" in Jordan, joined by the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Mr Igor Ivanov and senior EU officials.
After returning from Connecticut yesterday Mr Bush flew to Kennybunkport, Maine, to join his parents for a weekend break.
Mr Fleischer said: "I anticipate the President may play some golf, go fishing."