It was, in the words of one wise old Washington-watcher, a "great speech, but lousy policy". President George W. Bush's first State of the Union address, delivered to both houses of Congress and televised globally, went down a dream at home but spread alarm abroad.

The trouble is if you are an American president these days you really cannot make a speech just for home consumption. If you are fighting a war on global terrorism as well, the entire world is likely to take your words to heart. It read well, it sounded good, but it had not been thought through with an international audience in mind.

Not merely in the Middle East, but in Europe and Asia, the speech has upset members of the US-led coalition against global terrorism.

It all comes back to the great soundbite of the night: Mr Bush's ringing condemnation of three states - Iran, Iraq and North Korea - as constituting an "axis of evil", along with their "terrorist allies".

None of those countries has many friends, and all have been guilty of attempting to develop chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons. But to lump them together in some sort of spurious alliance, to link them to global terrorism, and to imply that they are next on the list of targets for pre-emptive military action, was dangerously simplistic.

Moreover, the soundbite distracted attention from the president's main message: that the war against terrorism might be long and slow, but he would be patient and determined.

Ever since Mr Bush's speech last Tuesday, his officials have been earnestly seeking to explain that what sounded like a new call to arms did not imply imminent hostilities.

But talk of an "axis of evil" sounds very much like the revival of the old Republican "rogue states" agenda, used long before September 11 to justify building a ballistic missile defence shield.

Mr Bush bracketed Iran and Iraq, two implacable foes in the Middle East, in the same conspiracy. By then throwing in Hamas, Hizbollah and the Islamic Jihad, all anti-Israeli organisations, as three of his four named members of a "terrorist underworld", the president caused alarm bells to ring in all the Arab states of the region. His speech reads like a blueprint for US policy designed by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister.

China is upset by the mention of North Korea as a likely target. Russia denies there is evidence to link any of the three states to global terrorism. As for the US's normally loyal European allies, they can be heard muttering anxiously in their seats on the campaign bus at such a clumsy attempt to elide the war on terrorism with the old agenda.

But one question has yet to be asked about the process of composing such an important re-interpretation of US foreign policy: where was Colin Powell, the US secretary of state? Was he consulted on its contents, and then overruled? Or was he simply ignored? Not only does the president's speech upset the international coalition he has so painstakingly assembled, it also cuts right across the policies Mr Powell had been pursuing, in particular cautious engagement with the reformers in Iran. It is much closer to the views of the hawks in the administration, led by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, than to those of the state department.

The State of the Union address was the second occasion in a week on which Mr Powell was publicly snubbed, if not actively humiliated. The first was the leaking of a letter from the White House to The Washington Times, revealing that the secretary of state was trying to persuade the president to change his decision on the status of the al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Mr Powell wanted a tribunal to decide if they should qualify as prisoners of war, as laid down by the Geneva conventions. The article quoted "administration sources" accusing him of "bowing to pressure from the political left".

If Mr Powell were losing influence in Mr Bush's inner circle, that would certainly alarm America's European allies. They see him as an essential moderating influence on the unilateralist tendency in Washington. Indeed, in the weeks after September 11 he was hailed in Europe as the hero. He set the parameters of Washington's response to the tragedy: no rush to react, a broad coalition, and using the full range of diplomatic as well as military instruments.

Europe's worries were certainly apparent this weekend at the Munich Security Conference. For four decades, defence ministers, military planners, analysts and industrialists from both sides of the Atlantic have been getting together in the Bavarian capital each year for some straight talking about the transatlantic relationship. From a European point of view, it could scarcely be a more pro-American occasion.

This year it was the turn of Mr Wolfowitz to cross the pond and deliver the traditional exhortation from Washington. His message was perfectly clear: thanks for Nato solidarity, he said in effect, but we will call you when we need you. The mission determines the coalition, he said, not the other way round.

Traditionally, the conference has seen American speakers urge the European allies in Nato to increase their defence spending, and share more of the military burden. This year it was the Europeans who were urging each other to do just that. There was a grim awareness that without closing the technological gap in military capacity, Europe will cease to carry much clout in Washington.

Nobody said it so bluntly, but the US response sounded very much like: "Too late."

The sub-text of Mr Bush's speech sounded the same. But the European response is still muted.

If Mr Powell has also lost out in the struggle for the president's ear, that certainly spells bad news for any lingering hopes of multilateralism in the US capital. He is a proud man who does not owe his position or popularity to the president. He cannot easily be sacked, but some fear he might be tempted to resign. Those who know him best doubt it, because he is also a good soldier. If his commander-in-chief has determined a course he will carry out his orders.

So if anyone is going to urge restraint in the next phase of the war on terrorism, it must be the Europeans. Tony Blair has been the most loyal of the lot, precisely because he believed it would give him more influence now. So let him warn against those who would see the world as an axis of evil fighting an alliance for good. He knows that things are never that black and white.

Contact Quentin Peel

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