With 17 months left in the Bush administration, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is racing to craft a foreign policy legacy for it that will not be overshadowed by Iraq.

The departure this week of President George W. Bush's confidant Karl Rove, means Rice will play an even more pivotal role as one of the last remaining members of Bush's original inner circle.

She has been with Bush from the outset, coaching him on foreign policy issues when he ran for president in 2000, serving as national security adviser when he invaded Iraq and taking over as secretary of state in January 2005.

Rice has turned to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking as a priority in the waning months of the administration. Bush has called a Middle East conference later this year with the hope it could launch something big and boost his legacy.

The top U.S. diplomat is also looking to North Korea and an agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula that faces many hurdles.

In his final months in office, President Bill Clinton made a last dash push on North Korea and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. He was not successful on either front.

Foreign policy experts doubt Rice can pull off what eluded Clinton in the traditional lame duck period of a presidency.

They point to weaknesses and divisions in governments in both Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as suspicion from Arab nations still smarting from the Iraq war and angry over Washington siding with the Jewish state during last summer's war with Lebanon.

"They are waiting out this administration and see no reason to give concessions," said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

CHEW GUM AND WALK

Rice has professed an ability to "chew gum and walk at the same time," but experts say she will find it difficult to stack up successes while war rages in Iraq, a majority of the public calls for a U.S. troop pullout, and the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign heats up.

"When your barn is burning you don't sit there and have wine and cheese in the house. You put out the fire," said Ivan Eland, author of "The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed."

The U.S. invasion of Iraq and its chaotic aftermath will dominate the history books, predicted Ivo Daalder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"Iraq is a blemish which overshadows everything. Whatever positive legacy will be negated by the fact that Iraq is a war that this administration started," he said.

But former Rice adviser Philip Zelikow said that while Iraq might cast a shadow he believed it was too early to make judgments on a legacy.

"It could be a much more complex story a year from now," said Zelikow, who was Rice's counselor until January when he returned to teaching at the University of Virginia.

He listed what he saw as Rice's achievements so far -- improved ties with western European allies and better cooperation with China on issues ranging from Darfur to punishing Iran over its nuclear plans.

On the debit side, he put the Iraq war, a perception that the United States had overreached and the failure to pay enough attention to global warming.

"Now the administration is turning that around, but we could be justly criticized for the tardiness of it," he said.

Zelikow pointed to China as a success, but others said Iraq had dominated the foreign policy agenda to the detriment of places like China and Africa.

"The true tragedy of Iraq, aside from the fact that it has destroyed the U.S. reputation in the world, is that the world has not stood still," said David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Historian Allan Lichtman from American University in Washington said assessments change over time, but he predicted Iraq would be to the Bush administration what Vietnam was to President Lyndon Johnson's legacy.

"Bush and his team may be more rebuked by history as Bush and his advisers had the Vietnam example in front of them and yet they still blundered," he said.