President Bush doesn’t know what to do with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Maybe he’s afraid she’ll accomplish something he’s failed to do. He berates her for visiting Syria but mostly ignores the Republicans who’ve also been there.

Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria in four years, but that’s because the president refuses to talk to a regime he despises. Instead, he has tried ferociously to isolate a country he believes supports terrorism.

The president is right that Syria helps groups we consider terrorists. But he’s wrong to think that isolating a key player in the Middle East will result in “regime change.”

In politics as in nature, a vacuum seeks to be filled. In the Middle East, the vacuum is the administration’s unwillingness to lead the search for solutions to tough problems. So, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, seeing the vacuum, have rushed in.

While the president is correct that it’s his prerogative to set foreign policy, his failures have encouraged other politicians to step into the breach. He should not be surprised that Congress is seeking a bigger foreign policy role.

The American public is thoroughly disillusioned with the Iraq war. Most Americans just want out, no matter what the consequences in the region. While this may not be the wisest course, it’s no surprise that presidential hopefuls and other ambitious elected officials, whether Republicans or Democrats, see an opportunity to carve out a policy position that most Americans like but that is in opposition to this president.

And, given that the president is a lame duck, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress see opportunities to make names for themselves by trying to address some of the world’s most difficult problems, notably Iraq, the Middle East in general, and the enormous antagonism towards the U.S. around the world. They don’t feel the need to include an unpopular president in their plans.

What’s unfortunate about the scenario playing out in Washington now is the apparent inability of this president to see how to serve his own interests.

To continue his intense partisanship when faced with a Democratic Congress makes no sense.

This is a time for him to do what he claims to have done as governor of Texas – reach out in a bipartisan manner to accomplish his goals. That’s what he pledged as candidate Bush in 2000. It is far from what he has tried to do as president.

Looking at the bigger picture, the foreign policy independence of Congress is troubling. We can’t have 535 different foreign policies, nor 535 elected politicians trying to resolve huge international problems on behalf of the United States.

But that’s not a strictly partisan problem. If the president resents Congress’ intrusion into his sphere, he needs to apply his rhetoric evenly, chastising Republicans who ignore his will as much as Democrats. This he has failed to do.

It’s time for the president to really reach out to Congress and find ways to work together on the foreign-policy problems he has failed or been unwilling to solve.

As others battle to succeed him, Bush will become increasingly irrelevant, even a liability, unless he can gain a position as a leader and problem solver. And, if he can’t bring his own party to heel, he certainly shouldn’t expect to curtail the efforts of the party he has scorned for the last six years.

It’s the way our system of government and politics works – if the elected leader can’t do the job, someone else will try to do it.

Gail Schoettler (gailschoettler@email.msn.com) is a former U.S. ambassador and Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer.