Bush's State of the Union address a familiar mix

WASHINGTON - George W. Bush's State of the Union address, the first of his second term, was a now familiar mix - a litany of sweeping goals both at home and abroad, the glossing over or omission of inconvenient truths, all presented with quite astonishing self-belief.

On the domestic front, Mr Bush for the first time set out in some detail his plans to part-privatise social security - the biggest overhaul of America's most venerated welfare programme since it was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt exactly 70 years ago.

Abroad, he was more specific on the grand theme of spreading freedom across the Middle East, first set out in his inaugural address last month. He chastised Iran as the "primary state sponsor of terror" and promised Iranian reformists the backing of the US: "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

Syria was handed a similar stern warning to "end all support for terror and open the door for freedom."

Mr Bush also urged Egypt and Saudi Arabia - US allies which have previously had a virtual free pass on their internal repression - to do more to foster democracy.

As usual, the President was well served by his speech writers and ceremonial stage managers.

State of the Union addresses now regularly use special Presidential guests to illustrate grand themes. But this year's was especially emotional, the tearful embrace in the VIP gallery between the parents of a Marine killed in Iraq, and an Iraqi woman who took part in Sunday's election, 11 years after her own father was murdered by Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.

In the audience below, many Republican senators and Congressmen pointed their fingers, carrying the purple ink stains used to mark Iraqis when they cast their vote at the weekend.

But now comes the hard part for Mr Bush - to bridge the gap between soaring rhetoric and awkward realities that do not conform with the grand vision, and the race to turn proposals into law within 18 months, before the 2006 mid-term election campaign.

After that, even this most confident and determined of Presidents will be treated as a 'lame duck.'

Today Mr Bush took his Social Security proposals on the road, in a swing that takes him to North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida - by no co-incidence, all states the President carried in the November 2004 election, and where Republicans believe they can unseat incumbent Democratic senators.

But he has a tough sell on his hands. On Wednesday he said almost nothing about how the scheme will be financed, and the consequences for the federal budget deficit, already set to hit US$427bn in 2005, according to the White House.

The public is highly wary, while Democrats almost to a man are against the proposals, seen as a crude effort to extend Mr Bush's conservative, ideologically-driven economic agenda.

In his response to Mr Bush, Harry Reid, leader of the 44 Senate Democrats, called the scheme "Social Security roulette," that would add $2 trillion to the national debt.

A few Republicans also have reservations, as shown by the half dozen moderates among the party's 55 Senators were conspicuously slow to applaud when Mr Bush outlined his privatisation plan.

In the Senate moreover "nothing gets done that's not bipartisan," warned Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who heads the Senate Finance Committee which will deal with Social Security reform - a reference to the 60-vote super-majority needed to end a Senate filibuster.

Similar pointed questioning, this time on Mr Bush's foreign policy awaits his new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who left yesterday for a weeklong visit to Europe and the Middle East.

The trip, a fortnight before Mr Bush travels to Europe, is billed as a fence-mending exercise after the acute trans-Atlantic strains over Iraq.

Instead Ms Rice will be closely questioned about the President's bellicose language towards Syria and Iran - just when the EU is engaged in delicate negotiations over Teheran's suspected nuclear programme.

For all the White House talk of repairing ties with traditional allies, Europe was mentioned but once in the 55-minute speech, and China, Russia and Africa, not at all.

The foreign policy focus of the second Bush administration, as for the first, will be the Middle East.

The huge US trade deficits and the sagging dollar, which could upset every plan, were passed over in silence.

But Mr Bush's lofty talk could not hide the practical problems, most notably how the US can make good on its warnings to Syria and Iran when its over-stretched military struggles to contain the insurgency in Iraq.

Even Paul Wolfowitz, deputy Secretary of Defence and a prime architect of the 2003 invasion, told a Congressional committee yesterday that, despite the election, violence was likely to continue for months yet.

And even Mr Bush's support for Iran's reformists could backfire. Historians here note how past US Presidents have extolled noble causes abroad - the Hungarians in 1956, Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites in 1991 - only to do nothing to help when these latter took the US at its word and rose up against their oppressors.

- THE INDEPENDENT