WASHINGTON: Ten months after last September’s attacks, President George W. Bush’s efforts to keep the nation focused and enthused about his “war on terrorism” appear to be running out of steam.

The steady slide in the stock market, which plunged to levels not seen since 1997, shortly after Bush delivered a rousing but largely hollow speech to Wall Street CEOs on Tuesday, not only highlighted growing worries about the health of the US economy, but also raised questions about Bush’s grasp of the problem of corporate corruption. More than one columnist suggested after the speech that, like his father in 1992, Bush “doesn’t get it.”

By the end of the week, members of Bush’s party were deserting the ranks to join Democratic proposals to toughen regulations on accounting and other corporate practices to restore confidence in US business.

At the United Nations, Washington’s closest allies were not shy about publicly expressing their fury over the administration’s threats to veto peacekeeping operations if it did not get blanket immunity from the newly created International Criminal Court (ICC). Clearly surprised at the intensity of the anger, the administration appeared by the end of the week to be retreating when it put forward a compromise resolution for the first time.

In Afghanistan, the assassination earlier this month of a key Pakhtoon leader who served as vice president in the transitional government in Kabul — coming on the heels of a US air attack on a Pakhtoon village at Uruzgan that killed some 50 people, many of them women and children at a wedding celebration — raised new questions about precisely what it is Washington is trying to accomplish in Afghanistan.

“Our forces seem to be chasing hither and yon and stumbling into one friendly-fire mess after another,” one retired military officer was quoted as saying in a remarkably pessimistic analysis by the Washington Post. “We may be sliding into a losing dynamic.”

That concern has spread even into Congress, which until this month stood firmly with the president. Thus, the headline of this week’s authoritative Congressional Quarterly read: “Criticism of War on Terrorism No Longer Politically Off Limits.”

Even Republican loyalists appear worried.

“I fear that we may see (the Hamid Karzai) government and our efforts unwind here if we don’t make the appropriate investment of men and effort and resources,” said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who had just returned from Afghanistan. “If this goes backward, this will be a huge defeat for us symbolically in that region (and for) confidence in Americans all over the world. We cannot allow this to go down.”

Nor are things going Bush’s way in the Middle East and the Gulf.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this week showed his gratitude for Bush’s attempted ostracism of Palestine Authority chief Yasser Arafat by shutting down the office at the Al Quds University of Sari Nusseibeh, a man described by the Times as “the leading voice of moderation within mainstream Palestinian politics.”

The White House called the closure “troubling” — the kind of denunciation that Sharon has shrugged off in the past.

“Bush’s recent speech on the Middle East has sadly been perceived by Sharon as a green light to do whatever he pleases when it comes to the Palestinians,” noted Lewis Roth, a spokesperson for Americans for Peace Now. “Sharon’s attack against Nusseibeh undermines any hope of serious negotiations.”

And while Bush, in a news conference dominated by questions about his and Vice President Dick Cheney’s past corporate practices, repeated his determination this week to oust Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by any means necessary, leaks and rumours from within the administration suggested that this, too, may be more doubtful.

Last month’s quiet departure of retired Gen Wayne Downing, a long-time champion of the US-backed Iraqi National Congress (INC), as counter-terrorism director at the National Security Council began the buzz that the administration, which was thought to be putting together plans for an invasion early next year, was in turmoil. More recent, unconfirmed rumours that one or two very senior Pentagon officials are thinking about leaving have fuelled the speculation.

But the leak last week to the Times of what was described as the details to a “very preliminary” document on US invasion plans confirmed to analysts here that very deep conflicts about even preparing for war, let alone figuring out what to do after it, are not remotely close to resolution.

It now appears that questions raised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State Department have forced the war hawks in the Pentagon, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, and the White House onto the defensive for the first time in many months.

“(Bush) is beginning to realize just how stark his choices are,” Michael O’Hanlon, a Mideast specialist under Bill Clinton, said. “If he wants to depose Hussein, he will have to prepare a full-scale invasion. He will have to do so in the context of a violent Israeli-Palestinian situation, little allied support and the knowledge that defeating Hussein the last time did not ensure George Bush senior’s re-election.”—Dawn/The InterPress News Services.