Some enlightening quotes from today's NY Times and Washington Post:

NY Times:
"What we are seeing is other nations joining to resist U.S. unilateralism and exacting a higher price," said Cliff Kupchan, vice president of the Nixon Center, an institute in Washington created by former President Richard M. Nixon that specializes in foreign policy. "We've seen pounds of flesh being exacted before. Now it's an aggregate pound of flesh."

Mr. Kupchan said international skepticism and domestic pressure from Americans seeking a more collaborative role with the world had prompted the administration to adjust its tone. But it may be too late, he said. "I don't think you can turn around three years of U.S. foreign policy with some midnight initiatives," he said. "The image of this president in the public's and the world's eyes is pretty much established."

Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former national security council official in the Clinton administration, agreed. "More and more countries are saying we're just not willing to play your game anymore," he said. "They're saying, `We're not going to contribute forces to what we view as a failed policy in Iraq.' "

But, "The Europeans have a bit of a dilemma," said Stanley R. Sloan, a former Europe specialist at the Congressional Research Service and now a visiting scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont. "They don't want the United States to fail in Iraq because it would hurt their interests as well." At the same time, Mr. Sloan said, such nations are loath to provide Mr. Bush with anything he could turn into a political victory at home. "They don't want to give George Bush something that will get him re-elected," he said.

Washington Post:
When the war began 15 months ago, the president's Iraq policy rested on four broad principles: The United States should act preemptively to prevent strikes on U.S. targets. Washington should be willing to act unilaterally, alone or with a select coalition, when the United Nations or allies balk. Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. And Baghdad's transformation into a new democracy would spark regionwide change.

But these central planks of Bush doctrine have been tainted by spiraling violence, limited reconstruction, failure to find weapons of mass destruction or prove Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, and mounting Arab disillusionment with U.S. leadership.

"Of the four principles, three have failed, and the fourth -- democracy promotion -- is hanging by a sliver," said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council staff member in the Reagan administration and now director of regional strategic programs at the Nixon Center.

"There's already been a retreat from the radicalism in Bush administration foreign policy," said Walter Russell Mead, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow. "You have a feeling that even Bush isn't saying, 'Hey, that was great. Let's do it again.' "