Bush's final G-8 summit may be harmonious

The annual Group of Eight meeting, which begins Monday on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, comes amid economic turmoil in most of the member nations, as well as political uncertainty for many of the leaders. Oil prices are hitting new record highs and worries about inflation are mounting. Like the United States, most of the nation's major trading partners are experiencing slow growth and market declines.

And Bush isn't the only one suffering low approval ratings.

In fact, the president may have more clout at the gathering than his own low approval number--29 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll conducted in mid-June--and the vast unpopularity of the Iraq war would suggest.

For one thing, the just-below-the-surface animosity toward him--based on his Iraq moves and perceived hostility toward what then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld derisively described as "old Europe"--is now mostly gone.

His two biggest detractors on Iraq--Germany's Gerhard Schroeder and France's Jacques Chirac--are gone from power, replaced by leaders who are much more U.S.-friendly: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

One old partner in the Iraq war, Tony Blair, is gone, replaced as British prime minister by Gordon Brown. Brown, who is having political problems at home of his own, so far has generally had good relations with Bush. And another Iraq war ally from the past, Silvio Berlusconi, who was thrown out of office in part because of that support, is back once more as Italian prime minister and G-8 member.

"It's a G-8 with a lot of political leaders who are pretty weak," said Michael Green, a former Bush assistant on Asian affairs and now an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Still, Green said, "I don't think that the president's potential leadership role or stature is as diminished as you might think in this forum, in part because he knows them all quite well. They have a working relationship. They have a common interest in demonstrating that this forum can do something."

The gathering includes the heads of states of the U.S., Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia.