According to messages from US embassies around the world, many people think increasingly that President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The reports from the US embassies are closely read at the State Department. The recent anti-war protests by millions of people in the cities of major US allies underscored a theme that the classified cables by US embassies had been reporting for weeks.
"It is rather astonishing," said a senior US official who has access to the reports. "There is an absence of any recognition that Hussein is the problem." One ambassador, who represents the US in an allied nation, bluntly cabled that there, Mr Bush had become the enemy.
This shift in public opinion has presented the Bush administration with a much different set of circumstances than US officials anticipated last September when, in an effort to create a coalition to confront Iraq, Mr Bush took the issue before the UN.
It seems to have to emboldened political leaders in Europe and elsewhere who have long been wary of military action. Although senior White House officials have insisted that US policy toward Iraq will not be affected by public opinion, they have acknowledged over the past few days that they need to confront the worldwide mood opposing a move to war.
Polls have indicated that Americans are more likely to support an invasion of Iraq if they believe it has international backing. This week, the administration plans to begin a co-ordinated effort to draw attention to what one official called "the plight of the Iraqi people, with a focus on human rights and freedom and Saddam's brutality".
The administration yesterday scheduled a briefing on Mr Bush's plans for humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in Iraq, with participants from the White House and the Pentagon.
White House officials are unapologetic about their overall approach, which is based on forcing an early confrontation with Iraq rather than agreeing to the stated wishes of several European allies to allow UN weapons inspections to continue. They even contend that they expected this change in momentum toward those opposing an early move to war.
Mr Bush appears to have shrugged off the protests.
The White House communications director, Mr Dan Bartlett, said: "History has proven that the closer you are to potential hostilities, the more vocal the opposition. There is always going to be a faction of people that don't agree. But I think anybody who gives a fair look at history on this will see that this president and this administration is acting responsibly and is attempting in every way possible to resolve this issue peacefully."
Analysts and US officials suggest a number of reasons the president has become the subject of such vitriol overseas. Some of it stems from personality: Mr Bush's blunt manner and frequent references to religion appear especially grating to European ears, these analysts and officials say. Much of it, however, is rooted in substantive questions about the role of US power in the world and whether Mr Bush is properly using it in his battle with Saddam.
"The debate \ has not been about Iraq," a State Department official said. "There is real angst in the world about our power and what they perceive as the rawness, the arrogance, the unipolarity" of the administration. Pointing to Mr Bush's seemingly dismissive statements about the protests, the official said the concerns reflected in cables from US "overseas posts" appeared to have little impact on White House decision-making.
Indeed, since the demonstrations, Mr Bush has not acknowledged the protesters' concerns or the fears they expressed nor has he even tried to counter their arguments that UN inspections must be allowed to continue. "Democracy is a beautiful thing and that people are allowed to express their opinion," he said last week. "I welcome people's right to say what they believe. Secondly, evidently some of the world don't view Saddam Hussein as a risk to peace. I respectfully disagree."
White House aides argue that an overwhelming case for action against Saddam has already been made.
"At every step of the way, this administration has gone to unprecedented lengths to explain the threat - even to the point of the secretary of state going before the UN Security Council and delivering classified information for the whole world to see," Mr Bartlett said.
Mr Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, believes world opinion shifted dramatically when, after the new year, Mr Bush signalled he was not committed to supporting continued inspections.
US allies had been relieved he said when Mr Bush in the autumn appeared to embrace resolving the issue through the United Nations. "It now appears to be an elaborate con job. Other leaders feel manipulated and deceived."
Ms Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and on the National Security Council during the Nixon administration, said there had been a natural progression in attitudes overseas.
"It was anti-war, not anti-American, now it's anti-Bush, not anti-American," he said.
"That image is stuck in people's consciousness."