The Bush administration is beginning to appease rather than confront America's enemies, a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board and leading neoconservative thinker said yesterday, describing the president as "a failure" who is proving powerless to impose his views on his administration.

Richard Perle offered a withering assessment of the president's impotence...saying American foreign policy is being applied by an out-of-control State Department.

Although Mr. Perle said he no longer has access to the president, he said his conversations with those close to the White House led him to a pessimistic view of how foreign policy is currently conducted, with a profound disconnect between President Bush's wishes and how the administration carries out policies in his name...

But the characterization of a divided administration frustrating the president's wishes is inaccurate, according the director of the foreign policy program at the New America Foundation, Steven Clemons, who said he thinks Mr. Bush is allowing Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice to play good cop, bad cop with the Iranians.

Mr. Perle said the president has failed to control his administration from the start and that bad appointments have ensured that he is isolated from the rest of the government, aside from close allies such as Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney...

Mr. Clemons, however, said the apparent contradictions among the president, the vice president, and secretary of state reflect a change in the president's thinking. " George Bush keeps his cards close to his chest. He is, however, allowing Condi Rice more leeway. We know that Bush got fully on board with Rice in changing policy about talking with Iran," he said...

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