President Bush doesn't know what to do with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Maybe he's afraid she'll accomplish something he's failed to do. He berates her for visiting Syria, but mostly ignores the Republicans who are also there. True, Speaker Pelosi is the highest ranking US official to visit Syria in 4 years, but that's because the President refuses to talk to a regime he despises. Instead, he has tried ferociously to isolate a country he believes supports terrorism.

The President is right that Syria helps groups we consider terrorists. But, he's wrong to think that isolating a key player in the Middle East will result in yet another "regime change". In politics as in nature, a vacuum seeks to fill itself. In the Middle East, the vacuum is the Bush Administration's unwillingness to lead the search for solutions to nearly intractable problems. Consequently, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, seeing the vacuum, have rushed in.

The President is also correct that it's his prerogative to set our foreign policy. His foreign policy failures, however, have encouraged other politicians to step into the breach. Particularly when both parties are battling for primacy in the ever earlier presidential primaries, President Bush should not be surprised that Congress is seeking a bigger foreign policy role.

The American public is thoroughly disillusioned with the Iraq War. Most Americans just want out, no matter what the consequences in the region. While this may not be the wisest course, it's no surprise that presidential hopefuls and other ambitious elected officials, whether Republicans or Democrats, see an opportunity to carve out a policy position that most Americans like, but that is in absolute opposition to this president.

What's peculiar about the scenario playing out in Washington right now is the apparent inability of this president to see how to win his own self-interest. To continue his intense partisanship when faced with a hostile Democratic Congress makes no sense. This is a time for him to do what he claims to have done as governor of Texas-reach out in a bipartisan manner to accomplish his goals. That's what he pledged as candidate Bush in 2000. It is far from what he has ever tried to do as president.

Given the different dynamics of President Bush's last 2 years in office, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress see opportunities to make names for themselves by trying to resolve some of the world's most difficult problems--notably Iraq, the Middle East in general, and the enormous antagonism towards the US around the world. They don't feel the need to include an unpopular president in their plans.

For the long term, the foreign policy independence of Congress is troubling. We can't have 535 different foreign policies, nor 535 elected politicians trying to resolve huge international problems on behalf of the United States. But here, again, it's absurd to play partisan politics. If the president resents Congress' intrusion into his sphere, he needs to apply his rhetoric evenly, chastising Republicans who ignore his will as much as Democrats. This he has failed to do.

Perhaps it's time for the President to really reach out to Congress and find ways to work together to deal with the foreign policy problems he has failed or been unwilling to solve. As Republicans battle for the top slot in the 2008 presidential contest, President Bush will become increasingly irrelevant, even a liability, unless he can return to a position as a recognized leader and problem solver. If he can't bring his own party to heel, he certainly shouldn't expect to curtail the efforts of the party he has scorned for the last 6 years. It's a standard lesson of our democracy-if you, the elected leader, can't do the job, someone else will.