Bush faces moment of truth over Iraq policy

By Steve Holland - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is facing a moment of truth over Iraq but is showing no sign that he will buckle under the pressure and embark on a new strategy in the unpopular war.

Iraq looms over Bush's presidency. It has driven down his poll numbers and he sheds tears over soldiers dying there and in Afghanistan.

But people who have visited with him say that for a president besieged, Bush remains remarkably self-assured, confident that history will prove him right.

He seems convinced that to engage in a precipitous withdrawal would leave Iraq open to becoming a safe haven for September 11-style attackers, even though critics say that is precisely what the Iraq invasion produced.

A reader of history, Bush occasionally brings to the White House groups of scholars to discuss its lessons. Iraq usually comes up.

Irwin Stelzer, an economic expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington, was invited to one session and found that Bush exuded "a calm feeling that having done what's right, the rest will take care of itself."

"I didn't get the feeling of beleaguered or some of those photos you see of Richard Nixon when things were coming apart. There was none of that."

Bush wanted to know why the United States was not more popular in Europe and chuckled when he suggested it was his personality. Stelzer told Bush he agreed: "It's probably your personality."