Image problems hamper US on goals abroad [View All]

Stopping Iran's nuclear program. Limiting the growing influence of an increasingly authoritarian Russia over the former Soviet empire. Making more friends than enemies in the Arab world.

Those are just some of the major foreign policy challenges the Bush administration will confront next year. But to do that, experts say, it must shake off the legacy of 2005 - a year aimed at rebuilding America's bridges to the world that instead kept the US in the diplomatic doghouse.

Two disappointments, they say, stand out. First, despite some optimism earlier this year, America's allies still doubt whether the US has changed its unilateralist ways. And second, this year's domestic events - from the slow federal response to hurricane Katrina to the domestic spying controversy - are influencing US ties with the world as much as international issues.

"The administration didn't do quite as well at rebuilding bridges and reviving alliances as the early rhetoric suggested, and that is going to have a direct impact on the issues we face in 2006," says Nicholas Gvosdev, editor of the National Interest, a foreign policy review. America's allies and partners "have a sense that the administration hasn't measured up to the promise of renewed cooperation and consultation suggested at the beginning of the year," he adds.



http://csmonitor.com/2005/1230/p01s04-usfp.html