The White House Besieged by Patrick Seale

Challenged and ridiculed at home and abroad, U.S. President George W. Bush is facing difficult times. To say that he is a ‘lame duck’ president does not adequately convey the depth of his predicament as friends desert him and foes gather for the kill. He is widely seen as the worst American president of modern times.

The war in Iraq, which has already swallowed up men and resources on a gargantuan scale, is overshadowing the remaining months of his presidency -- with no end in sight. This is a war which America cannot win but which it cannot afford to lose, because a strategic defeat would have incalculable consequences for America’s standing in the world. Yet that is the prospect staring Bush in the face.

His immediate problem is that Congress, under Democratic control since last November’s mid-term elections, is challenging his control of America’s foreign policy. The most striking example was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week to Syria -- a country which Bush, under Israeli pressure, has sought to isolate and punish.

Worse still, Congress is seeking to deny him the $124bn he needs to finance the 20,000 extra troops he wants to send to Iraq unless he agrees to a time table for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops. The Senate wants the troops out of Iraq within a year; the House of Representatives will allow him 17 months. Some bargaining will be necessary to reconcile these two positions but the lesson is clear: The Congress will not fund an indefinite stay of the U.S. military in Iraq.

The struggle has become personal in that the Democrats are trying to force the resignation of two men on whom Bush depends and who have, for years, been part of his inner circle. They are his chief aide Karl Rove -- known as ‘Bush’s Brain’ -- and Alberto Gonzales who, before being promoted attorney-general, served as Bush’s general counsel when he was governor of Texas. Gonzales, the son of Mexican immigrants, is believed to have provided the legal arguments which allowed torture to take place in such infamous prisons as Abu Ghraib.