Washington ? The stakes for President Bush at the Group of Eight economic summit in Russia are unusually high. There’s trouble wherever he looks, from North Korean missile tests and Iranian nuclear ambitions to setbacks in Afghanistan and unrelenting sectarian violence in Iraq.

Bush faces the possibility that he may leave office in 2 1/2 years with U.S. troops still heavily involved in Iraq and with North Korea more dangerous than when he took office. Relations are shaky with host Russia, and battles between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants are roiling the Middle East.

“This is a highly unusual G-8 summit, to be honest, in the sense that so many issues are ripe at the time when the leaders are meeting,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said Tuesday. Bush leaves today on a trip that will first take him to Germany for meetings with new Chancellor Angela Merkel, and then on to St. Petersburg for meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then the weekend G-8 summit.

“The stakes are very high for Bush because he has to deliver,” said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who helped Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan prepare for summits of the world’s industrial democracies.

Complicating the dynamics for Bush: The need to win Putin’s help on Iran and North Korea makes it harder for him to openly criticize Russian leaders for recent steps restricting political and economic freedoms. Also, there’s the desire not to insult the summit host.

Thus, Bush has stopped far short of the kind of sharp criticism leveled in May at Putin by Vice President Dick Cheney during a visit to Lithuania. Cheney accused Putin of backtracking on democracy and bullying neighbors on energy. By contrast, Bush is headed for Russia with a package of incentives.

In a pre-summit meeting with foreign journalists this week, Bush said he hoped to put the finishing touches on a deal to bring Russia into the World Trade Organization. He said it was for others – not the United States – to say whether Russia was intent on blackmailing its neighbors on energy.

This year, Bush is finding some comfort and more cooperation from old allies.

Some of the bitter divisions on Iraq that marred recent G-8 summits have healed, and the world powers are finding themselves more and more in agreement on vital issues – particularly on curbing the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.

Still, Iraq lingers – both as an issue, given the continuing violence confronting the fragile new government, and as a reminder of a Bush foreign policy experiment that didn’t go so well.

It could make it harder for Bush to persuade fellow leaders that he means it this time when he insists on sticking with diplomacy in seeking to resolve nuclear tensions with both North Korea and Iran.