A Œfirst year,¹ however, is only one quarter of a presidential term. A third period already is commencing--call it Œbeyond Sept. 11¹- which will be influenced, though not entirely shaped, by the Administration¹s two-tiered first year, and of which the outlines are not yet clear.

Before September 11, Bush was a minority President, in office by fiat of the Supreme Court, overshadowed by a prominent Vice President, dominated by the right wing of his party, regarded as a neophyte in foreign affairs, and with a domestic program built around tax-cutting, military buildup and the usual Republican preference for business interests over environmental protection. After September 11, Bush evolved into a confident war President, more sure-footed in diplomacy than had been foreseen, the scourge of terrorists, the apparent master of his own Administration, who had achieved tax reduction and started military expansion, and whose poll standing clouded memories of the lost popular vote and the Supreme Court intervention of 2000­a year that itself seemed as long-ago as black and white television.

One significant change occurred without regard to September 11. For most of the months before that traumatic day, Bush and the Republicans held shaky control of both houses of Congress. Since Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched his party affiliation in mid summer, the Democrats have been in equally shaky control of the Senate, with Majority Leader Tom Daschle as their new spokesman.

Before September 11
Bush¹s first year in the White House was preceded, about as inauspiciously as possible, by the long electoral deadlock in Florida, victory in which would decide the 2000 election, and the unprecedented ruling of the Supreme Court that put him in office despite the national popular-vote victory of Democrat Al Gore. As a result, Bush was sworn in with more than half the electorate having voted against him and with nearly as many Americans doubting his legitimacy or his ability, or both.

Even so, the new President asserted himself quickly, both publicly and in Washington. His major appointments, save that of former Senator John Ashcroft to the post of Attorney General, won Congressional and public approval. He promptly pushed through the massive tax cuts he had promised though critics charged they were unduly favorable to wealthy Americans, and managed to work out an agreed education program with the Democrats. In foreign affairs, Bush--refusing to act like a minority President- restated his intentions to renounce the ABM Treaty with Russia, build a national missile defense, and expand US military power. He rather quickly backed away from the international agreements reached at Kyoto on global warming and from the Clinton Administration¹s attempt to negotiate improved relations with North Korea. In an early venture abroad, he established what appeared to be a warm relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the domestic side, Bush reiterated his belief in and support for Œfaith-based¹ initiatives in social policy, confirmed his intention to allow some Social Security accounts to be privately invested, outlined an energy policy heavily relying on production- including drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but with few conservation or Œalternative energy¹ programs. This policy reinforced the view that he was under the influence of the oil industry.

Political analysts were puzzled by the unusual prominence of Vice President Richard Cheney, a veteran of the Nixon and Ford Administrations, of several years in Congress and of the oil industry. Testifying before Congress, appearing frequently on television, and chairing the Administration¹s energy policy development group, Cheney was considered by some observers to be more powerful within the Administration than even Bush himself--certainly the most prominent Vice President in recent years.

The President also appeared to be unduly deferential to his party¹s conservative wing, believing--as he was said to have concluded--that neglect of right-wing interests and power had been politically fatal to his father, the one-term President George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). Since the younger Bush, like Cheney, had been an oil executive, their Administration was widely considered too friendly to oil interests, particularly after public disclosure of the controversial energy policy developed under Cheney¹s guidance.

After September 11
The second period of Bush¹s first year also began inauspiciously, on September 11 itself. As terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, with the nation riveted to its television screens and hungry for decisive leadership and response, the President was on a pre-scheduled trip to Florida. As the attacks unfolded, he first was flying about on Air Force One, landing in New Orleans and Nebraska and only belatedly returning to Washington. All this was said to be on the orders of the Secret Service, fearful for Bush¹s safety; but it left Cheney prominently in charge in Washington--and numerous Americans skeptical of the official excuse for the President¹s absence from the helm.

Immediately thereafter, however, Bush took clear command and has exercised it ever since. In visits to the attack sites, an address to Congress, and public statements both warlike and reassuring, Bush rallied the nation, Œdeclared war¹ on terrorism, and authorized the needed responses--including a bail-out for the hard-hit airline industry, financial relief for a devastated New York City, and federal aid to thousands of victims of the attacks. Quick investigative work also led to denunciation of those believed responsible--Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network--and warnings of reprisals against any nation that sponsored or sheltered terrorists.

When it was determined that bin Laden was being supported and sheltered by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, US armed forces launched a Œhigh tech¹ and hugely effective attack that soon resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban--though not the capture of bin Laden--at a relatively low cost in American lives. Al Qaeda was not destroyed but was considerably disrupted.

The war in Afghanistan was fought and won with general global approval, and the active support of Pakistan and some other Islamic nations. It was accompanied by vigorous American efforts to rescue, feed and house Afghan refugees, and brought about a Œcompromise¹ national regime in Kabul that temporarily quelled warlord rivalries and sought to establish a stable nation.

Bush refused, however, to allow US troops to participate in a United Nations peacekeeping force in Afghanistan owing to his general dislike of and distrust of Œnation-building,¹ or of using American forces except actually to fight wars. As combat in Afghanistan came to an end, the support of the Islamic world for the war on terrorism began obviously to erode amid rising Islamic apprehensions that the US actually had declared, and Bush intended to carry out, war on Islam, not just terrorism.

American officials and Bush himself denied this purpose, but even some non-Islamic nations worried that the US, in pursuing the war on terrorism, might tend to Œgo it alone¹ without proper consultation with its allies or consideration for world opinion. Such fears were underscored by a much-debated State of the Union message in January 2002, in which President Bush appeared to return to, or to re-emphasize, the unilateral approach to world affairs that he had carried into office in January 2001--but which had been necessarily subordinated to coalition-building for the war on terrorism.

Bush¹s reference to an Œaxis of evil¹--Iran, Iraq and North Korea- was sharply criticized. These nations, he said, sought weapons of mass destruction with which to threaten the world. The charge raised the possibility of military action against members of the Œaxis¹ and seemed diplomatically insensitive to a Œmoderate,¹ nascently pro-Western movement in Iran, and to North Korean efforts to limit its missile development program in ways desired by the US. It also exacerbated fears that, with the Taliban ousted, Bush would turn American forces against the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq--with or without allies.

At home, however, as his first year neared conclusion, Bush- owing mostly to his war leadership--had reached new highs in personal popularity and political approval. As a Œwar President,¹ he obviously had taken charge and won the nation¹s approval for doing so. Cheney had become relatively invisible, whether deliberately pulled out of the spotlight by Bush¹s advisers, or routinely relegated to safe and undisclosed locations by the Secret Service. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldt, at the same time, rose in visibility and public esteem.

Bush¹s overall policy necessarily changed from the largely domestic emphasis of the first eight months of his first year to a focus on the war on terrorism that he has said will have to be carried on for years to come. That change clearly won public approbation. But the costs of that war, of the general military buildup on which the Administration has embarked and of the huge tax reductions of 2001 forced cutbacks in numerous domestic programs and a return to deficit financing in the budget Bush devised for fiscal 2003. That document disclosed that the President also plans to spend the Social Security surplus that both he and Gore pledged in the 2000 campaign to protect.

It¹s not yet clear, for these and other reasons, that Bush can translate his war President¹s high standing into the kind of strong peacetime domestic leadership he was unable to demonstrate before September 11. Already, the newly Democratic Senate has rejected a Bush stimulus package for an economy badly damaged on September 11, on grounds that the proposed stimulus would not really stimulate but would unwisely add to the massive tax cuts enacted last year--and, hence, to impending deficits. In several important particulars, moreover, Bush¹s most controversial political projects--abrogation of the ABM Treaty, missile defense, increased energy production, and partial privatization of Social Security--appear unchanged by September 11. Critics charge that he is taking advantage of his wartime popularity to push controversial projects he could not have achieved before September 11.

Attorney General Ashcroft--still perhaps Bush¹s least popular appointee--is being accused, somewhat similarly, of trying to use the wartime atmosphere to camouflage policies that in other circumstances would be seen as violations of, or threats to, accustomed civil liberties. These include military tribunals for certain captured terrorists,and breaching the lawyer-client privilege for imprisoned terrorists. Ashcroft won few supporters when he told Congress that critics of such policies were inadvertently aiding and abetting terrorism.

Beyond September 11
The most immediate problem that Bush the war leader appears to face in this new period is Œwhat next?¹--specifically, whether to follow up victory in Afghanistan with another military victory to keep the war Œmomentum¹ going, most probably in an assault intended to oust the tyrant Saddam Hussein from Iraq. The first President Bush and his military leader--Colin Powell, now the Secretary of State--declined to overthrow Saddam after the Gulf War, on grounds that no suitable successor regime was in sight, and that a military occupation of Iraq would isolate US forces in a hostile Middle East. That 1991 reasoning remains pertinent today. A decade after the Gulf War, however, Saddam Hussein is still a tyrant, and is now widely believed to be developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Strong advocates within and without the current Bush Administration- perhaps including George W. Bush himself--want Saddam overthrown for either or both reasons and, in some cases, because they believe without direct evidence that Iraq must have supported the September 11 terrorist attacks. The courses of action these advocates most often suggest are direct military assault, as in Afghanistan, with or without allies; or support for insurgent forces--if they exist--that might overthrow Saddam from within; or a combination of the two.

Some customary US allies reject the idea of a direct assault. A lot of Americans probably would oppose that course, too, in the absence of hard evidence of Iraqi complicity in the September 11 attacks. The Islamic world no doubt would react angrily to a US military assault on another Islamic nation, making more difficult the incomplete but vital task of destroying what remains of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Experts on terrorism regard that task as the highest US priority, and one that requires international cooperation, since it cannot be accomplished by American military action.

So George Bush the war President faces a hard choice: To make war next on Iraq, thus continuing a visible Œwar on terrorism¹--but with a likely loss of allied and world support, and the possible opposition of a substantial portion of a US public that now strongly supports him.

Or to rest on the victory already attained in Afghanistan, while still pursuing Al Qaeda and its supporters by less violent means and through international cooperation--but risking the gradual fading away of the actual war, with commensurate fall-off of popular support for it, and the lift that both have given the President and his Administration.

The destruction of Al Qaeda is the most important goal of US policy, experts on terrorism believe. If, therefore, a bomb-and missile assault on Iraq were to alienate enough other nations (Islamic and allied) to make that goal more difficult to achieve, President Bush would have good reason to reject the advice of those who want to overthrow Saddam Hussein soon and by direct military means.

But what does George Bush believe? As he begins a second year in office, he has yet to disclose his own sense of US priorities in the war on terrorism--other than his determination that the war must and will be waged on his watch.