[Claeren]

Interesting....

I actually look at Iran as the least threat/biggest win. BAsically, it could have been the biggest poop-show yet and at least Bush didn't screw that up! They posture a lot but just because they don't bow-down to everything and anything America wants does not mean they are really that big of a threat.

North Korea was almost a huge loss for Bush, but it seems they renewed efforts there and the last 6 months or so have seen things stabilize...

And Iraq is a huge question mark. Have things actually calmed down or will it be like Vietnam, where they pretended to have this orderly withdrawl and then a year later when it was off peoples radar in America things are allowed to publically fall apart?! Or are the "terrorists' gone but the civil war about to flare after withdrawl? Or are the "terrorists" simply on the hunt for new battlegrounds? etc etc

I don't see how it will be a victory - especially since it was such a needless war to begin with. It has bred an entire generation of people that now hate America more than ever. At the cost of (eventaully) TRILLIONS of dollars. I find it hard to believe a larger net gain in American-power and/or prosperity could not have resulted from a better use of that money. The COMPARATIVE success between Iraq and the alternative uses of that money is hardly a close race IMO.


Basically i would suggest that Bush-led foriegn policy has been so weak and muddled and filled with backwards ideology and cultural ignorance that at best this administrations record will go down as 'interesting'. I am not sure how ANY of America's larger objectives have been acheived perhaps outside of a narrow "privitization of the gain and nationalization of the loss' as billions in public money has been transferred directly into the pockets of the American-elite while a major hallowing out of national wealth took place.

There has been a 25% gain in public debt (In 6 years, and it is a 25% gain on something that was already huge!), a ~50% erosion in the dollar (and therefore real comparative wealth) and a massive increase in national liabilities (wars, veterans health, etc)




And the biggest failure has been with Russia. Where it is slowly moving towards an abyss and it is not even (outwardly) on America's radar. Putin has basically taken over, changed election laws, seized the media, etc and there is yet to be an organized response. I think THAT will be Bush's greatest failure in hindsight. Allowing Russia (and the world) to go unchallenged down that road....





Claeren.