PHOENIX — After a lackluster weekend of diplomacy on his Iraq policy, George W. Bush begins a critical period for his presidency Monday with a pair of domestic and international events unfolding over the coming weeks that will shape the remainder of his term.
During two days at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Bush did not receive a single public endorsement to aid his push for a U.N. ultimatum that Iraq give up its most dangerous weapons or face attack. A vote on a U.S.-backed resolution before the United Nations Security Council could come as early as this week.
Bush returned to the United States on Sunday afternoon for a campaign event in Arizona and will spend Monday campaigning for Republican candidates in New Mexico and Colorado. It is part of a national barnstorming tour meant to help the GOP cling to its razor-thin majority in the House, and perhaps regain control of the Senate, in the Nov. 5 elections.
The outcome will have a decisive impact on the prospects for Bush’s domestic proposals, from a second round of tax cuts to the creation of a new homeland security department.
Republicans are slightly favored to hold the House, though an upset can’t be ruled out. The Senate is too close to call, particularly after incumbent candidate Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed in Friday’s aircraft crash.
There’s also much riding on Bush’s efforts to rally international support for an ultimatum that Iraq surrender its most dangerous weapons or face U.S.-led attack.
While Bush misses no opportunity to assert his intention to act alone against Baghdad, if he must, doing so would mark a complicated and potentially perilous turn, particularly if it comes to war and things go badly.
A weekend of meetings with leaders from China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore and more than a dozen other Asia-Pacific countries produced little for Bush in that area. Bush had hoped to use the weekend to lobby Russian President Vladimir Putin on Iraq, but Putin canceled his trip to remain in Moscow to monitor the hostage crisis at a theater there.
Perhaps most telling was the pointed refusal of his host, Mexican President Vicente Fox, to embrace Bush’s proposal for a U.N. resolution calling for tough new weapons inspections for Iraq, backed by the threat of U.S.-led force.
“We have listened to the United States and we are listening to others,” Fox told reporters, with Bush seated beside him.
“We want a strong resolution that leads quickly to new inspections and ensures Iraqi compliance, but a resolution that is satisfactory to all in the U.N.,” said Fox, once one of Bush’s most vocal supporters among foreign leaders.
When Bush first sought the resolution during a speech at U.N. headquarters Sept. 12, he said he expected the body to act in “weeks, not months.” Seven weeks later, it’s nearing time to call a vote, or call the whole thing off.
“This is a very key week coming up,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters. “We have to make a few fundamental decisions,” he said. “We can’t continue to have a debate that never ends.”
Following the APEC summit, there would seem to be little reason for Bush to press for a Security Council vote on Iraq a week before midterm congressional elections, unless he’s certain of getting
it passed.
That would lend Bush’s approach to Iraq the international legitimacy conferred upon the war his father, former President George H.W. Bush, waged against Iraq a decade ago.
Rejection at the United Nations, on the other hand, would sting, undercutting Bush’s claims of world support and generating public unease over the prospect going it alone, or very nearly so, against Baghdad. Neither would bode well for Republicans a week from now.