Analysis: Is 'Perfect Storm' Brewing for Bush? [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3327502

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the 2004 election nears, President Bush could face an international "perfect storm" -- more attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, an overextended deployment of U.S. troops eager to come home and blackening clouds over the Middle East, North Korea and Iran.

The confluence of world events will test Bush's foreign policy leadership even as he must concentrate on the U.S. economy and other domestic issues that could determine whether he wins a second term.

Although most Americans still have a favorable opinion of the president, his job performance rating has slipped to 52 percent positive and 48 percent negative in a recent poll of 1,011 likely U.S. voters by Zogby International. This compares with a post-Sept. 11, 2001, peak rating of 82 percent positive.

The president and his top aides have repeatedly insisted that their course in Iraq is the right one.

But last week's bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 24 people, has provoked demands for a reassessment of U.S. Iraq policy.

Meanwhile:

-- Renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence may have scuttled a U.S. peace plan for the region.

-- Six-party talks in Beijing this week raise both peril and promise in dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis.

-- A U.S. push to have the United Nations address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions could provoke a crisis.

STORM BREWING

more