F Is for Failure

On the brief occasions when the President now appears in the Rose
Garden to "comfort" or "reassure" a shock-and-awed nation, you can
almost hear those legions of ducks quacking lamely in the background.
Once upon a time, George W. Bush, along with his top officials and
advisors, hoped to preside over a global Pax Americana and a domestic Pax Republicana
-- a legacy for the generations. More recently, their highest hope
seems to have been to slip out of town in January before the
you-know-what hits the fan. No such luck.

Of course, what they feared most was that the you-know-what would hit
in Iraq, and so put their efforts into sweeping that disaster out of
sight. Once again, however, as in September 2001 and August 2005, they
were caught predictably flatfooted by a domestic disaster. In this
case, they were ambushed by an insurgent stock market heading into
chaos, killer squads of credit default swaps, and a hurricane of
financial collapse.

At the moment, only 7%
of Americans believe the country is "going in the right direction,"
Bush's job-approval ratings have dropped into the low 20s with no
bottom in sight, and North Dakota
is "in play" in the presidential election. Think of that as the
equivalent of a report card on Bush's economic policies. In other
words, the Yale legacy student with the C average
has been branded for life with a resounding domestic "F" for failure.
(His singular domestic triumph may prove to be paving the way for the
first African American president.)

But there's another report card that's not in. Despite a media focus on
Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the record of his Global War on
Terror (and the Bush Doctrine that once went with it) has yet to be
fully assessed. This is surprising, since administration actions in
waging that war in what neoconservatives used to call "the arc of
instability" -- a swath of territory running from North Africa to the
Chinese border -- add up to a record of failure unprecedented in
American history.

On June 1, 2002, George W. Bush gave the commencement address
at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Afghan War was then
being hailed as a triumph and the invasion of Iraq just beginning to
loom on the horizon. That day, after insisting the U.S. had "no empire
to extend or utopia to establish," the President laid out a vision of
how the U.S. was to operate globally, facing "a threat with no
precedent" -- al-Qaeda-style terrorism in a world of weapons of mass
destruction.

After indicating that "terror cells" were to be targeted in up to 60
countries, he offered a breathtakingly radical basis for the pursuit of
American interests:

"We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who
solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break
them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited
too long... [T]he war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must
take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst
threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path
to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act... Our security
will require transforming the military you will lead -- a military that
must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the
world."

This would later be known as Vice President Dick Cheney's "one percent doctrine"
-- even a 1% chance of an attack on the U.S., especially involving
weapons of mass destruction, must be dealt with militarily as if it
were a certainty. It may have been the rashest formula for "preventive"
or "aggressive" war offered in the modern era.

The
President and his neocon backers were then riding high. Some were even
talking up the United States as a "new Rome," greater even than
imperial Britain. For them, global control had a single prerequisite:
the possession of overwhelming military force. With American military
power unimpeachably #1, global domination followed logically. As Bush
put it that day, in a statement unique in the annals of our history:
"America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge
-- thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless,
and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

In other words, a planet of Great Powers was all over and it was time
for the rest of the world to get used to it. Like the wimps they were,
other nations could "trade" and pursue "peace." For its pure folly, not
to say its misunderstanding of the nature of power on our planet, it
remains a statement that should still take anyone's breath away.

The Bush Doctrine, of course, no longer exists. Within a year, it had
run aground on the shoals of reality on its very first whistle stop in
Iraq. More than six years later, looking back on the foreign policy
that emerged from Bush's self-declared Global War on Terror, it's clear
that no President has ever failed on his own terms on such a scale or quite so comprehensively.

Here, then, is a brief report card on Bush's Global War on Terror:

High-Value Targets

1. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: The Global War on Terror started here. Osama bin Laden was to be brought in "dead or alive" -- until, in December 2001, he escaped
from a partial U.S. encirclement in the mountainous Tora Bora region of
Afghanistan (and many of the U.S. troops chasing him were soon enough
dispatched Iraqwards). Seven years later, bin Laden remains free, as
does his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, probably in the
mountainous Pakistani tribal areas near the Afghan border. Al-Qaeda has
been reconstituted there and is believed to be stronger than ever. An
allied organization that didn't exist in 2001, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,
was later declared by President Bush to be the "central front in the
war on terror," while al-Qaeda branches and wannabe groups have
proliferated elsewhere.

Result: Terror promoted.

Grade:F

2. The Taliban and Afghanistan: The Taliban was officially
defeated in November 2001 with an "invasion" that combined native
troops, U.S. special operations forces, CIA agents, and U.S. air power.
The Afghan capital, Kabul, was "liberated" and, not long after, a
"democratic" government installed (filled, in part, with a familiar
cast of warlords, human rights violators, drug lords, and the like).
Seven years later, according to an upcoming National Intelligence
Estimate, Afghanistan is on a "downward spiral"; the drug trade flourishes as never before; the government of President Hamid Karzai is notoriously corrupt, deeply despised, and incapable of exercising control much beyond the capital; American and NATO troops, thanks largely to a reliance upon air power and soaring civilian deaths, are increasingly unpopular; the Taliban is resurgent and has established a shadow government
across much of the south, while its guerrillas are embedded at the
gates of Kabul. American and NATO forces promoted a "surge" strategy in
2007 that failed and are now calling for more of the same.
Reconstruction never happened.

Result: Losing war.

Grade:F

3. Pakistan: At the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, the
Bush administration threw its support behind General Pervez Musharraf,
the military dictator of relatively stable, nuclear-armed Pakistan. In
the ensuing years, the U.S. transferred at least $10 billion,
mainly to the general's military associates, to fight the Global War on
Terror. (Most of the money went elsewhere). Seven years later,
Musharraf has fallen ingloriously, while the country has reportedly
turned strongly anti-American -- only 19%
of Pakistanis in a recent BBC poll had a negative view of al-Qaeda --
is on the verge of a financial meltdown, and has been strikingly
destabilized, with its tribal regions at least partially in the hands
of a Pakistani version of the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda and foreign jihadis.
That region is also now a relatively safe haven for the Afghan Taliban.
American planes and drones attack in these areas ever more regularly,
causing civilian casualties and more anti-Americanism, as the U.S.
edges toward its third real war in the region.

Result: Extremism promoted, destabilization in progress.

Grade:F

4. Iraq: In March 2003, with a shock-and-awe air campaign and
130,000 troops, the Bush administration launched its long-desired
invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, officially in search of
(nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad fell to American
troops in April and Bush declared
"major combat operations...ended" from the deck of a U.S. aircraft
carrier against a "Mission Accomplished" banner on May 1st. Within four
months, according to administration projections,
there were to be only 30,000 to 40,000 American troops left in the
country, stationed at bases outside Iraq's cities, in a peaceful
(occupied) land with a "democratic," non-sectarian, pro-American
government in formation. In the intervening five-plus years, perhaps
one million Iraqis died, up to five million
went into internal or external exile, a fierce insurgency blew up, an
even fiercer sectarian war took place, more than 4,000 Americans died,
hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars were spent on a war
that led to chaos and on "reconstruction" that reconstructed nothing.
There are still close to 150,000
American troops in the country and American military leaders are
cautioning against withdrawing many more of them any time soon. Filled
with killing fields and barely hanging together, Iraq is -- despite
recently lowered levels of violence -- still among the more dangerous
environments on the planet, while a largely Shiite government in
Baghdad has grown ever closer to Shiite Iran. Thanks to the President's
"surge strategy" of 2007, this state of affairs is often described here
as a "success."

Result: Mission unaccomplished.

Grade:F

5. Iran: In his January 2002 State of the Union address, Bush dubbed
Iran part of an "axis of evil" (along with Iraq and North Korea),
attaching a shock-and-awe bull's-eye to that nation ruled by Islamic
fundamentalists. (A neocon quip
of that time was: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go
to Tehran.") In later years, Bush warned repeatedly that the U.S. would
not allow Iran to move toward the possession of a nuclear weapons
program and his administration would indeed take numerous steps,
ranging from sanctions to the funding
of covert actions, to destabilize the country's ruling regime. More
than six years after his "axis of evil" speech, and endless
administration threats and bluster later, Iran is regionally resurgent,
the most powerful foreign influence in Shiite Iraq, and continuing on a
path toward that nuclear power program which, it claims, is purely
peaceful, but could, of course, prove otherwise.

Result: Strengthened Iran.

Grade:F

Unlawful Enemy Combatants

6. Lebanon: Vowing to encourage a "democratic," pro-western
Lebanon and crush the Shiite Hezbollah movement, which it categorized
not only as a tool of Iran but as a terrorist organization, the
administration green-lighted Israel's disastrous air assault and invasion in the summer of 2006. From that destructive war, Hezbollah emerged triumphant in its southern domain and strengthened in Lebanese national politics. Today, Lebanon is once again close to a low-level civil war
and the influence of Syria, essentially the unmentioned fourth member
of the President's "axis of evil," is again on the rise.

Result: Hezbollah ascendant.

Grade:F

7. Gaza: As part of the President's "freedom agenda," the
administration promoted Palestinian elections on the West Bank and in
the Gaza Strip meant to fend off the rising strength of the Hamas
movement, which it considered a terrorist organization, and promote the
power of Fatah's president Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas, however, won the election. The U.S. promptly refused to accept the results and, with Israel, tried to strangle Hamas in its Gaza stronghold. Hamas today remains entrenched in Gaza, while Abbas is a weakened figure.

Result: Hamas ascendant.

Grade:F

8. Somalia: In 2006, using U.S. trained and funded Ethiopian
troops, the Bush administration intervened by proxy in a Somali civil
war to oust a relatively moderate Islamist militia on the verge of
unifying that desperate country for the first time in a long while. Two
years later,
the situation has only deteriorated further: the capital Mogadishu is
in chaos, militant Islamists have retaken much of the south, those
Ethiopian troops are preparing to withdraw, and the Bush-backed government to fall. At least, ten thousand Somalis have died and more than a third of the population, a jump of 77%, needs aid just to survive.

Result: Catastrophe.

Grade:F

9. Georgia: Promoting Georgian democracy -- and an oil pipeline
running through its territory that brought Central Asian energy to
Europe while avoiding Russia -- the administration armed, trained,
and advised the Georgian military, backed the country for NATO
membership, and looked the other way as its leader launched an invasion
of a breakaway region (where Russian troops were stationed). Support
for Georgia was part of a long-term Bush administration campaign to rollback Russian influence in its "near abroad," especially in Central Asia (where results would, in the end, prove hardly more promising).
The Russian military promptly crushed and then demolished the Georgian
military, brought the future usefulness of the oil pipeline into
question, and sidelined NATO membership for the foreseeable future. In
response, the Bush administration could do nothing at all.

Result: Humiliating defeat.

Grade:F

Axis of Evil Extra Credit Target

10. North Korea: Calling North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il
variously a "dwarf," a "pygmy," and simply "evil," and his regime "the
world's most dangerous," Bush targeted it in his "axis of evil" speech.
As an invasion of Iraq loomed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
made clear that the U.S. was willing to fight and win wars "on two
fronts." The administration turned its back on modestly successful,
Clinton-era two-party negotiations that froze North Korea's
plutonium-processing program, began overt -- and possibly covert --
campaigns to undermine the regime, and regularly threatened it over its
nuclear weapons program. The invasion of Iraq evidently led North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-il to the obvious shock-and-aweable conclusion
and he promptly upped the pace of that program. In 2006, the country tested its first nuclear weapon and became a nuclear power.

Result: Nuclear proliferation encouraged.

Grade:F

Collateral Damage

11. Global Public Opinion: In the 2003 National Security
Strategy of the United States was this infamous line: "Our strength as
a nation-state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a
strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial
processes and terrorism." In other words, the U.N., the International
Criminal Court, and al-Qaeda were all thrown into the same despised
category, along with, implicitly, international public opinion. Who
needed any of them? The result? With the help of its torture policies
and its prison camp at Guantanamo for public relations, the Bush
administration achieved wonders. Never has global opinion of the U.S.
been lower (or anti-Americanism more rampant) than in these years --
and when the administration needed allies, they were hard to find (or
expensive to buy).

Result: Public diplomacy in the tank.

Grade:F

12. The American Taxpayer: The Bush administration estimated that the war in Iraq might cost the U.S. $50-60 billion, the war in Afghanistan far less. By now, those wars have officially cost more than $800 billion, close to $200 billion in the last year (at an estimated $3.5 billion a week). Their real long-term costs are almost incalculable, though they will certainly reach into the trillions.
The full price tag of the Global War on Terror, including the costs of
extraordinary renditions, as well as the building and maintaining of
offshore prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, and elsewhere, is unknown,
but historians looking back will undoubtedly conclude that the
squandering of such sums helped push the U.S. toward financial
meltdown.

Result: Priceless.

Grade:F

Evaluation

If you want a final taste of pathos -- to deal with the disasters it
created, the Bush administration has finally turned to the most
un-Global-War-on-Terror-like diplomatic maneuvers. It rushed an envoy
to North Korea to save a disintegrating nuclear deal (while agreeing to
remove that country from the State Department's list of state sponsors
of terror), is preparing the way for possible negotiations with parts of both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban (call it "reconciliation"), and is evidently considering setting up a "U.S. Interest Section" in Teheran soon after the election.

In these last years, the Bush administration's deepest fundamentalist faith
-- its cultish belief in the efficacy of military force above all else
-- has proven an empty vessel. With its "military strengths beyond
challenge" all-too-effectively challenged, Bush's second-term officials
are finally returning to some of the most boringly traditional methods
of diplomacy and negotiation -- under far more extreme circumstances
and from a far weaker position -- while their former neocon supporters
scream bloody murder from right-wing think tanks in Washington and the
editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. "Having bent the knee to North Korea," former U.N. ambassador John Bolton wrote recently
in that paper, "Secretary [of State] Rice appears primed to do the same
with Iran, despite that regime's egregious and extensive involvement in
terrorism and the acceleration of its nuclear program."

And they do have a point. This administration does now seem to be on bended knee to the world.

As with Pandora's Box, however, what the Bush administration unleashed
cannot simply be taken back. A new administration will not only inherit
an arc of instability that is truly aflame, but the paradigm, still
remarkably unexamined, of a Global War on Terror. Now, there is a disaster-in-the-making for you.