Bush Plans Effort to Mend Key Alliances

As he puts his new foreign policy team in place, President Bush is preparing a diplomatic push to repair relations with key allies, said senior government officials, diplomats and congressional sources.

The effort stems from the administration’s realization that progress on issues that include the Middle East peace process, stabilizing Iraq and preventing Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons is far more likely with the cooperation of allies than if the U.S. worked alone, a White House official said.

“We’ve had our disagreements [with allies], and the president has said many times he’d like to move on, but the election offers the chance of a rebirth of these efforts,” the official added.

Bush will personally head the effort to reengage with other countries when he meets today with key Pacific Basin leaders, including Presidents Hu Jintao of China and Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Santiago, Chile. Bush will focus on North Korea in one-on-one discussions.

At least five other high-level meetings over the next several weeks are expected to bring top American and European officials together to address crucial issues. The sessions will also be a chance for the administration to display its new willingness to work together, though it is unknown whether the U.S. will offer anything for the allies’ support.

“There’s plenty of opportunity to send the message of multilateralism,” concluded a senior administration official who declined to be named.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will travel to Israel and the West Bank in the next few days and then will attend a summit of Iraq’s Middle East neighbors in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. Last week, Bush said he planned to visit Europe immediately after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Many experts consider closer cooperation with European countries, especially France and Germany, vital to achieving Bush’s foreign policy goals.

Although the renewed effort to repair damaged ties stems in part from Bush’s reelection, it is also driven by the hard realities of a daunting agenda -- one clouded with instability on three continents, the U.S.-declared war on terrorism and emotion-laden trade issues.

“I can’t think of a time in the past three decades where the foreign policy plate is so full with complex, difficult and important issues,” said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was the chief of policy planning at the State Department during the first 2 1/2 years of Bush’s presidency.

Haass also noted that Bush would start his second term with the constraints of a large budget deficit, a $100-billion-plus annual commitment in Iraq, stretched military resources and oil prices bouncing around $50 a barrel.

The administration’s effort comes amid signals that some of America’s key European allies are also interested in repairing relations that remain severely strained from the run-up to the Iraq war two years ago. Late last week, an advisor to French President Jacques Chirac held extended talks with national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to replace Powell as secretary of State. That meeting took place a few days after a postelection call between Bush and Chirac that U.S. and French officials indicated went better than expected.

“Clearly, the mood is let’s think positive, let’s act positively on [that] which we did not do a good job on in the past year,” a senior European diplomat said.

Chirac’s public remarks this week -- sharply critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- underscore the likelihood that any rapprochement won’t be easy. But Bush received a nudge to reach out to old allies from a loyal friend. “Multilateralism that works should be [America’s] aim,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in London.

On Friday, Chirac was more receptive. Speaking at Oxford University, he said, “North America and Europe are destined to work together because they share the same values, the same background. The transatlantic link is quite simply the political expression of our great and fundamental values.”

Some officials who have served under Bush and know Rice were skeptical of the new team’s ability to follow through. With Powell’s departure, many foreign policy specialists believe that the group will probably be far more conservative and less interested in seeking the compromises needed to win allied support.

Charles L. Pritchard, who served as special envoy for negotiations with North Korea before leaving the administration last year, said any agreement that would lead Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions would require delicate diplomatic work with other Asian nations, including South Korea, a key ally.

“With the team they are putting together for the second term, I don’t see how we can come to an amicable agreement with allies on how to proceed,” Pritchard said. “If anything, it looks like a tougher line might emerge.”

Pritchard described Rice as “not an architect, but certainly the implementer” of a policy that froze all but peripheral contact between the United States and North Korea during Bush’s first term. There was also little visible progress toward resolving the nuclear issue.

Others, however, cautioned that many senior appointments -- including that of Rice’s deputy at the State Department -- were still to come and the verdict on her new role is still out.

Curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions looms as potentially an even tougher challenge. It could also quickly test the depth of the administration’s commitment to rebuilding ties with the major European countries. Last week, Britain, France and Germany reached agreement with Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment and plutonium processing operations in return for trade and political considerations.

Officials in the three European capitals need Washington’s support to assure Tehran that it would not be vulnerable to punitive measures by the United States. Their deal, however, is far from the stance of the U.S., which has rejected negotiations and demanded that the Iran issue be referred to the United Nations Security Council because of alleged Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty violations.

When Powell said this week that Iran was actively studying how to outfit a missile with a nuclear warhead, some European fears that preceded the Iraq war were revived. The Europeans still mistrust the U.S. for taking action over their opposition.

A senior administration official, however, said some Middle East specialists in the government favored joining the Europeans in engaging Iran -- not so much because the negotiations were expected to succeed but because if they did collapse, the U.S. would have the Europeans on its side.

U.S. officials view the Israeli-Palestinian issue as an opportunity to cooperate with Europe and the U.N. as they try to make the most of the opening created by the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. European countries have been financial supporters of the peace process since the 1993 Oslo accords.

Their involvement would also diminish the risk that a Palestinian state would be dismissed as an American puppet, U.S. officials said. “There’s an important role for the U.N. and the Russians and the Europeans to make sure this effort is not discredited,” the senior administration official said.

Times staff writer Janet Hook in Washington contributed to this report.