Bush to spur NATO on in Afghan fight

TALLINN, Estonia — President Bush will push for a stronger NATO commitment to fighting in Afghanistan during a summit in Latvia this week, before heading to Jordan to try to work through what the White House acknowledges is “a new phase” of sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Jordan detour, a late addition to the itinerary, will consist of meetings with Jordanian King Abdullah II and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tomorrow night and Thursday morning, and promises to dominate the four-day trip.

The White House said Mr. Bush will also use the trip to make it clear that, even with control of Congress changing and independent recommendations such as the Iraq Study Group pending, the president still decides foreign policy.

National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley said Mr. Bush is “listening to all of these voices for ideas,” but will assure Mr. al-Maliki that in the end, “it is the president who will be crafting the way forward on Iraq.”

Mr. Bush finds a situation rapidly deteriorating on the ground in Iraq, and decided he needed to meet face to face with Mr. al-Maliki to fine-tune the course in Iraq. Mr. Hadley said the president wants to hear how the prime minister plans to rein in militias, what he will do to speed up shifting control to Iraqi security forces, and how he can bring more political groups into his coalition government.

On his second international trip since voters handed control of Congress to Democrats on Nov. 7, Mr. Bush finds this trip dominated by the two wars to which he has committed U.S. troops.

He is trying to resist being pushed around by the political situation at home, where expectations are running high for the Iraq Study Group, the congressionally mandated panel led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton.

Yesterday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next year, said the commission “faces a tremendous opportunity and responsibility. The opportunity is to generate a bipartisan way forward in Iraq. The responsibility is to make the hard choices required to turn Iraq around.”

While still resisting the term “civil war” for the Iraq conflict, the White House did acknowledge the situation is deteriorating and efforts to stop it have failed so far.

“We’re clearly in a new phase characterized by an increase in sectarian violence that requires us to adapt to that new phase,” Mr. Hadley said, though he had little specific to say about how Mr. Bush plans to respond.

Some Shi’ite leaders in Iraq have threatened to withdraw from the government there if Mr. al-Maliki travels to meet with Mr. Bush.

Meanwhile, Abdullah this weekend broadened the stakes of the meeting and the Iraqi conflict by saying it cannot be solved unless there is also a solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue.

Adding to the situation is Lebanon, which is teetering after the recent murder of the industry minister and continued political conflict between Hezbollah and the U.S.-backed government.

“We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands,” the king said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Meanwhile, expectations for the NATO summit are low. European nations are resisting Mr. Bush’s push for committing more troops to the dangerous areas of Afghanistan, and want to go slowly on expanding the alliance’s ties to non-NATO nations who are assisting with security operations.

Mr. Hadley said the difficulties are understandable but said the leaders at the summit will make some announcements on those issues.

“I think there is an increasing awareness at how important this is for the war on terror, how important it is for Afghanistan and how important it is for NATO not to fail,” he said.

Mr. Bush spent the night in Tallinn, Estonia, for what amounts to a brief social call, before flying today to neighboring Latvia for the NATO summit in Riga. He will also deliver a speech at Latvia University.

It is the first NATO summit on the territory of the former Soviet Union.