Political allies turn on Bush: Patrick Cockburn in Washington on election campaign weapons that are starting to backfire

THE TANGLED history of America's relations with Iran is coming to haunt George Bush just as it did Jimmy Carter 12 years ago. And, like Mr Carter, the current President is finding his election campaign crippled by the defection, or lack of co-operation of, important parts of the bureaucracy and the media.

The Carter administration, desperately seeking ways to free the US hostages in Tehran, found rescue plans systematically leaked to the columnist Jack Anderson by officials sympathetic to Ronald Reagan. In the past week, Mr Bush has seen his efforts to damage Bill Clinton, over his avoidance of the Vietnam call-up, submerged by renewed accusations that as vice-president he was involved in the arms-for-hostages dealings with Tehran.

A note from 1987 was found in the papers of the former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, questioning Mr Bush's claim that he was 'out of the loop' in the Iran-Contra affair. 'I think President Reagan relied on him a lot in these dealings,' said General Richard Secord, chief logistics officer for the arms sales to Iran.

The motives of Mr Reagan's senior officials in publicising Mr Bush's role in Iran-Contra are largely self-preservation or profit. But, as with Mr Carter in 1980 or Richard Nixon during Watergate, Mr Bush's ability to use the power of the presidency to stay in the White House is being hampered by the refusal of parts of the political establishment, bureaucratic and journalistic, to co-operate.

The prime example of this was the leaking of plans to provoke an armed clash with Iraq immediately before the Republican Convention. Angered by the stand-off between UN inspectors and the Iraqi government outside the Agriculture Ministry in Baghdad in July, the administration had determined that it would demand entry to the Ministry of Military Industries and, if refused, bomb Baghdad immediately.

The scheme fell apart because it was leaked to Patrick Tyler of the New York Times by senior officials, who denounced it as an electoral ploy. The White House quickly put its own spin on the aborted plan, by leaking to friendly journalists a version of events in which the scheme never got close to the operational stage, because James Baker, former Secretary of State, and Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Adviser, had quashed it.

The Independent on Sunday was able, however, to establish through European diplomats involved in the project that the New York Times story was correct. Mr Bush and General Scowcroft, frightened by Mr Clinton's lead in the polls, had decided at a meeting on 13 August to force an immediate confrontation with Iraq over access by UN inspectors in Baghdad, and at the same time declare an air exclusion zone over southern Iraq.

If this had gone as planned, Mr Bush would have appeared before the Republican Convention as the national leader, compelled by Saddam Hussein's excesses to resume bombing Iraq. The Iraqi leader would have made a far more satisfactory, and electorally appealing, object of hatred than Hillary Clinton, single mothers and homosexuals.

A military move against Iraq is almost the only action in Mr Bush's power which could significantly affect the outcome of the election. Although Israeli-Arab talks resume in Washington on 21 October, their course is attracting little attention. The UN inspectors, however, return to Baghdad in mid-October, and if they were to be prevented from entering any building, diplomats in Washington have no doubt, bombing would be begin immediately.

Logically, Saddam would avoid giving Mr Bush an opportunity to strike against Iraq, and, after exposure last time, US military action would be seen at home and abroad as opportunism, unless the bombing could be portrayed as a response to Iraqi rejection of UN resolutions.

Mr Bush has to be all the more careful because, unlike Mr Reagan's in 1980 and 1984 and his own campaign in 1988, his freedom to manoeuvre is under sustained attack from previously supportive sections of the media. The two most influential conservative columnists, George Will and William Safire, have been hostile. Safire has done much to keep Iraq-gate - US support for Iraq before the invasion of Kuwait - alive as an issue, predicting last week that 'a grand jury will be empanelled next year to probe James Baker's backdoor financing of Saddam Hussein's war machine'.

Eric Alterman, in his study of US pundits entitled Sound & Fury, published this month, says the most important reason for political commentators turning on Mr Bush is that 'the pundits were furious at the President for what they perceived as his strong-arm tactics regarding Israel'. No doubt this was one motive, but the predominantly right-wing pundits were also affected by the break-up of the Reaganite coalition when deprived of Cold War glue.

One of the first signs that Mr Bush was in trouble came with the decision of Pat Buchanan, far-right media pundit, to stand against him in the primaries. Mr Bush's campaign became absorbed in trying to shore up his right-wing base, an aim pursued right up to the Convention in August when, as an act of reconciliation, Mr Buchanan was allowed an unedited rant calling for cultural war on a variety of enemies.

Mr Clinton benefited from this, as he did earlier in the year when his candidacy was largely preserved by favoured treatment from influential pundits, after the allegation about an affair with Gennifer Flowers.

Howell Raines, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, criticised the 'extraordinary burst of journalistic fawning'. Mr Clinton has benefited from the fact that his political views are close to those of the average American journalist.

Mr Bush suffers from the fact that the media believe they were taken for a ride during the 1988 campaign. On one hand there was the rhetoric about 'a kinder, gentler America' in Mr Bush's convention speech; on the other, was the Willie Horton attack, an advertisement showing George Dukakis releasing Horton, a convicted murderer, for a weekend during which he raped a woman. This time television and press are much more vigorous in running items about the truth or falsehood of a candidate's claims.

Mr Bush and his advisers appear perplexed as to why tactics which proved so effective in 1988 no longer work, and draw a bad press. The end of the Cold War means there is no enemy at the gate and no suitable alternative threat. It is a year to stress good works and good intentions, as was indicated by all three winners in the Miss America competition in Atlantic City last weekend. The title went to Leanza Cornett, Miss Florida, who, on being crowned, made a moving appeal on behalf of people with Aids. Second was Catherine Ann Lemkau, Miss Iowa, who spoke about child abuse, and third was Renee Yoder, Miss Indiana, who talked about her youth out-reach programme back home.

Mr Clinton yesterday widened his lead, according to a poll for Time magazine / CNN. It put Mr Clinton at 49 per cent, against 37 per cent for Mr Bush. In the event of Ross Perot rejoining the race, Mr Clinton would get 43, Mr Bush 32, and Mr Perot 17 per cent, the survey found.

(Photograph omitted)