Bush Leverage With Russia, Iran, China Falls as Oil Prices Rise
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush, already weakened at home by the soaring cost of oil, is finding that it's also eroding his ability to achieve his foreign-policy goals.
``It's a geopolitical nightmare,'' says William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary under President Bill Clinton who is now chairman of the Cohen Group, a Washington-based consulting firm. Such nations as Iran, Russia and China ``don't see us as the colossus that can cause them any harm, either by our economy or by our prestige.'' Record-high energy prices are weakening Bush's prospects of assembling an international coalition to counter Iran's nuclear ambitions. They are diminishing his chances of influencing energy-rich nations such as Russia and isolating troublesome ones including Venezuela and Sudan. And they are straining U.S. economic and diplomatic ties with China, whose oil needs are skyrocketing.
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