No good news on the U.S. foreign policy came from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea or Russia in April, making it one of the most unsuccessful months for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
On the domestic front, Rice has been subpoenaed to testify about false intelligence used to justify the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, has fended off criticism from former CIA Director George Tenet and has watched one of her senior sides resign amid a sex scandal.
All these challenges indicate diplomatic failures for the Bush administration, analysts say.
Iraq is still plagued by raging violence despite the two-month-old, U.S.-led security crackdown. Hundreds of civilians have died and over 100 U.S. troops have been killed in April, making it one of the deadliest months since the war began.
On the political front, a showdown is looming between the White House and Congress after the Senate passed legislation linking war funding to the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of next March, a bill that Bush promised to veto. In Baghdad, the fragile U.S.-backed government is still struggling to make the necessary political compromises that many analysts believe are necessary to end the bloodshed there.
In Afghanistan, U.S. and Nato troops are still battling the Taliban more than five years after U.S.-led forces invaded the country. Civilian casualties continue, either from rebel attacks or from military raids.
Analysts predict that the U.S. military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the deteriorating conditions in both countries and heavy U.S. resources they demand, are putting constraints on the U.S. foreign policy elsewhere.
"Quite clearly the fact that we have most of our forces tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan is not lost on the rest of the world," said Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute for Peace think tank. "When Gulliver is tied down, everybody knows it."
"You've got some long-term trends, like the war in Iraq and the (Republican) loss of Congress, which are narrowing the options and the chickens are coming home to roost," said Rand Corporation analyst James Dobbins.
Another indication of the failure of the U.S. foreign policy is its approach towards Iran, which continues to refuse Western demands to halt its nuclear program, but expresses readiness to hold unconditional talks with the Americans, an offer Washington rejects unless Tehran halts its uranium enrichment program.
One area that the U.S. State Department claimed success just a few months ago was North Korea, following its February 13 deal to take steps to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for the prospect of economic and other benefits. But Pyongyang missed one of the agreement’s first deadlines on April 14 by failing to shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon because of a financial dispute.
The setbacks for the U.S. foreign policy continue, with last week being exceptionally difficult.
On Wednesday, a congressional committee subpoenaed the Secretary of State to testify about a central but later discredited White House claim that pre-war Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Niger.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir used his final state-of-the-nation address to accuse the West of "colonial-style" interference in Moscow’s domestic affairs and announce that he’d freeze Moscow’s commitments under a European arms control deal, a move that signaled the continued deterioration of relations between Russia and the West as well as its deep suspicion over the intentions of the Nato and the U.S. -- particularly over Washington's planned missile defense system.
On Friday, Rice accepted the resignation of Randall Tobias, the head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, after he told ABC News he had called an escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage."
On Sunday, Rice spent much of her morning on television talk shows responding to Tenet's claim in his new memoir that "there was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat."
Despite the several setbacks, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack rejected the idea that last week a bad one. "In this business, I have lived through some really bad weeks. The week of September 11 -- that was a bad week," McCormack said. "Last week -- this is what happens in the conduct of foreign policy. It's what happens in Washington."