There is no denying the toll that U.S.-led military operations in Iraq have exacted in terms of Bush's global standing and America's role in a world where public opinion remains strongly hostile almost everywhere to the administration's objectives in Iraq.

That, in turn, has clearly affected Bush's ability to leverage an agenda, whether it's promoting free trade in Latin America, bending allies to his will on global climate change, or garnering multilateral support for reconstruction in Iraq.

But as the Group of Eight summit wrapped up here Monday, it seemed possible that for the first time since United States and British troops stormed Iraq in March 2003, the political playing field may not be tilted as steeply against Bush.

Behind this shift lies an important reality: Bush's popularity aside, the rest of the world needs U.S. leadership to restore order when regional bullies start throwing their weight around.

Steven Simon, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “There's an important countervailing factor, which is in this case a desire to continue to repair the damage that was caused in the run-up to the Iraq war. The Europeans do not want to see a perpetual state of crisis in the relationship with the United States.”

The summitry on display here demonstrated this development. From the Middle East and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict to North Korea and Iran, international leaders struggled for consensus.

Using a phrase seldom heard at previous summits, White House aides said repeatedly that the leaders were “speaking with one voice” during their deliberations with Bush.

For Bush, that is progress of sorts.

Fatal terrorist bombings timed to disrupt discussions, street violence by protesters and diplomatic muggings by other leaders during summits have put Bush on the defensive during most trips abroad in the last three years.

Last fall, when Bush traveled to Argentina for a hemispheric summit, he was ambushed by Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who, with the tacit encouragement of the host government, whipped up a mob with a fiercely anti-American speech at a local soccer stadium.

Chávez's anti-imperialist rhetoric helped trigger a riot that caused extensive property damage in the downtown core of Mar del Plata, the summit site.

Bush's plans to use that summit to promote a hemispheric free trade agreement were then sabotaged by a bloc of Latin leaders headed by Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, working with Chávez.

In the summer of 2005, Bush traveled to an elegant golf resort in Scotland for a G-8 summit that was badly shaken on its opening day when Islamic terrorists, in an apparent effort to make a statement about Britain's role as a key U.S. ally in Iraq, bombed the London subway system, killing more than 50 people.

Tens of thousands of protesters, some unhappy about globalization and others about Iraq, massed in Scotland in a show of anger, much of which was directed at Bush.

But the onward march of political developments across the globe, some of them mushrooming into full blown-crises like the spasm of violence in the Middle East, appears to have forced many governments to put aside their opposition to past Bush policies in order to help craft a strategy for solving other problems.