President George W. Bush urged a rebellious Congress on Tuesday to give his new Iraq war plan a chance and insisted in his State of the Union speech it is not too late to shape the outcome.

Facing skeptical lawmakers and some of the weakest approval ratings of his six years in office, Bush said the best chance for success is to send 21,500 more United States troops to Iraq.

"On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of the battle. Let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory," Bush said.

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He did not back down even as Democrats and his own Republicans work on nonbinding congressional resolutions expressing opposition to the plan he announced two weeks ago.

"Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq -- and I ask you to give it a chance to work," Bush told the joint session of the U.S. Congress, the first time since he took office that he has faced a House of Representatives and Senate both controlled by Democrats.

With a Washington-Post/ABC News poll giving Bush a 33 percent approval rating, he faces a tough road ahead focusing America's attention on domestic issues with Iraq dominating the debate.

He sought to push an agenda at home against a heavy tide of criticism over Iraq, calling climate change a "serious challenge" that he would address by reducing U.S. gasoline consumption by 20 percent over 10 years and increasing use of alternative fuels.

In the audience of lawmakers, Cabinet officials, diplomats and Supreme Court justices were as many as 10 potential successors of both political parties jockeying for position to replace him.

A silence fell over the crowd as Bush reviewed the 2006 setbacks in Iraq. Some of the Iraq lines in his speech netted ovations only from Republicans.

Watching over his shoulder was the first woman speaker of the House, California Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who refused to stand and applaud during some sections of Bush's Iraq remarks.

"Unfortunately, tonight the president demonstrated he has not listened to Americans' single greatest concern: the war in Iraq," she said in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb, a recently elected Vietnam veteran with a son serving in Iraq, said "we need a new direction in Iraq," a policy "that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq."

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said two of the best words he heard in Bush's speech were "Madame Speaker."

Bush rejected Democratic arguments for pulling American troops out of Baghdad. He said Iraq would be victim of an epic battle between Shi'ite and Sunni extremists and Iraq's government would be overrun if U.S. forces step back before Baghdad is secure.

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in," he said.

Commenting on global terrorism, Bush said there was a much clearer view of the nature of the enemy in the years since the September 11 attacks on U.S. targets by Al-Qaida.

He said Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who has not yet been found by U.S. forces, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who was killed by U.S. forces, and their Sunni extremist followers were just one camp in the Islamist radical movement.

"In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia [Shi'ite] extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East," Bush said in a prepared text of his remarks.

"Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah - a group second only to Al-Qaida in the American lives it has taken," Bush said.

"The Shia [Shi'ite] and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," he said.

Bush and his administration have accused Iran of fueling instability in Iraq and have vowed to stop any such activity.

Bush also addressed Iran's nuclear program, saying "the world will not allow the regime in Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons."

Bush addressed U.S. efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East, saying that for the sake of Americans' security, the U.S. must "help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity."

Bush also addressed Middle East developments in the direction of liberty in recent years, hailing free elections in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq in 2005. He said these developments were undermined by terrorist and extremist activities in 2006.

In a brief statement on Israeli-Palestinian relations, Bush said the U.S., along with the other members of the Quartet, is "pursuing diplomacy to help bring peace to the Holy Land, and pursuing the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security."