And after years of international isolation on the issue of global warming, his administration is now offering to negotiate an agreement on cutting emissions with the world’s major developed and developing nations, a plan that received a surprisingly warm response during his visit to Europe this month.

“I think one of the things we did in this process, to be honest, is I think we learned a bit,” Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said at the White House on Thursday. Though speaking of the administration’s willingness to display patience with the North Koreans, even though its declaration came nearly six months after it was promised, his remarks reflected a striking change in the administration’s strategy.

Offering and accepting compromise is, of course, part of diplomacy, and it can often be unsatisfactory.

The sharpest criticism came from those conservatives who accused Mr. Bush of abandoning his unwillingness, justified in their view, to deal with a government that flagrantly has broken previous commitments and continues to suppress the most basic rights of its people.

“Many people understood a lot of things the Bush administration did,” said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “While they were not sold very well, they were based on very sound principles, which are core Republican Party principles. What happened to those?”

Mr. Bush himself went to great lengths to emphasize that the declaration was only a step, and one that required verification, before any further concessions could be considered.

The problem for Mr. Bush is that time is running out. As each day passes, it becomes increasingly likely that little of his ambitious foreign-policy agenda will come to fruition during his presidency.