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As the 2004 election nears, US President George W. Bush could face an international "perfect storm" - more attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, an overextended deployment of US troops eager to come home and blackening clouds over the Middle East and Iran.

The confluence of world events will test Bush's foreign policy leadership even as he must concentrate on the US economy and other domestic issues that could determine whether he wins a second term.

Although most Americans still have a favourable opinion of the president, his job performance rating has slipped to 52 per cent positive and 48 per cent negative in a recent poll of 1,011 likely US voters by Zogby International. This compares with a post-September 11, 2001, peak rating of 82 per cent positive.

The president and his top aides have repeatedly insisted that their course in Iraq is the right one. But last week's bombing of the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 24 people, has provoked demands for a reassessment of US Iraq policy.

Meanwhile, renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence may have scuttled a US peace plan for the region.

And a US push to have the UN address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions could provoke a crisis.

In Iraq, a major lightning rod is the issue of troops - whether the 139,000 US military on the ground should be supplemented with more Americans or foreign forces.

In a recent letter to Bush, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Chuck Hagel, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Baghdad attack showed the "urgent need" for more foreign forces in Iraq.

They urged Bush to find a way to broaden the UN's role, so leaders of countries that opposed the war can have the "political cover" to justify post-war co-operation.

"It is worth enhancing the role of the UN because it will allow us to share the huge risk and expense of securing, policing, and reconstructing Iraq - tasks that will take tens of thousands of troops and tens of billions of dollars over many years," the senators wrote.

More compelling to the White House, perhaps, may be the stance of William Kristol and Robert Kagan, neo-conservatives who helped create the intellectual climate that propelled Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

In The Weekly Standard, which Kristol edits, they warned that the future of US world leadership and security is at stake in Iraq but Bush has "failed to commit resources to the rebuilding of Iraq commensurate with these very high stakes." There are too few US troops and too little money committed to Iraq and another US$60 billion and two army divisions are needed, they said.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted that no more troops are required, just that the United States must hasten preparations for Iraqis to take over security duties.

Over time, if security in Iraq does not improve, the original occupation force may have to return for another tour of duty, said Phillip Gordon of the Brookings Institution. That could mean thousands of disgruntled military and their families in an election year, experts say.

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