She declined to be interviewed for this article, but her associates and even some of her rivals say she shows every sign of setting a course aimed at putting diplomacy at the top of the Bush administration's foreign policy agenda after a period dominated by military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this vein too, Bush must more effectively communicate to the world audience the nature of his global war on terror. Between a widely (though, it should be noted, not quite as widely as sometimes suggested) supported Afghanistan campaign and the so controversial war in Iraq--America's war on terror lost much support in the court of international opinion. I'm not talking here of the cheap Euro-Gaullist broadsides about Iraq simply consituting a bid for hegemony in the Middle East, or for access to cheap oil (that worked out well, eh?), or simply a dynastic clean up of Poppy's unfinished business. But the reality is, of course, that there exists much misapprehension and confusion about why, for Bush, the war in Iraq has been conflated with the war on terror. Bush must now, as his second term begins, communicate better what he means when he says Iraq is now the "central front" in the war on terror. This is particularly critical in the conspiracy-ridden Middle East. On that front, Bush (and, perhaps more important, his Arab-speaking diplomats) must increasingly pound in the message that: a) Iraq is already sovereign, is embarking on historical elections, and that a national assembly and consitution will take shape thereafter, b) U.S. forces remain in theater solely to help bring about the successful conclusion of this hugely difficult political process (but won't be rushed out until such goals are accomplished), c) that no permanent American bases will remain in Iraq, d) Iraq will have its own independent foreign policy (even an anti-Israeli, pro-Iranian one, if that's how things pan out, though I don't think they necessarily will); e) the perpetrators (at least the direct ones) of Abu Ghraib are being tried and jailed--in sharp distinction to the treatment afforded Saddam's torturers)--and that all efforts will be made to ensure no repeats of such horrific human rights violations, f) America's move to pressure the Arab world to democratize is not an exceptional singling out of that region--indeed it represents the reversal of a pre-existing 'democracy exception' whereby we didn't spearhead democracy there (unlike our democracy-promotion initiatives through the Cold War in Latin America and Asia) g) America has supported Muslims from Aceh to Zepa in the past odd decade and h) the U.S. will more forcefully re-engage in attempting to bring about a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.