Al Gore said the US had squandered the good will of the world when George Bush declared war on Iraq a year after 911. Al was a little late, as Bush had already squandered that good will in declaring war on Afghanistan, although he had more support for that action, as the world seemed willing to offer this beleaguered Taliban-led nation as a sacrificial lamb to Bush's War on Terror. Little did the world know that it would set the US foreign policy for two decades.
While I don't believe the conspiracy theories that the US staged the event to further its devastating foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, I do believe the Bush administration quickly saw the strategic value of this terrorist strike in promoting its Machiavellian agenda. Bush had two old war horses in the White House - Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld - both heavily tied to the military industrial complex. They needed wars to justify the massive expansion in military contracts they wanted. As Rummy said himself, Afghanistan didn't offer enough targets. He and Dick wanted something bigger, so they played on Bush's sense of retribution in driving him to declare war on Iraq.
It was an ill-fated decision that led to the loss of thousands of American troops and countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars that spilled over into Syria, Yemen and other countries throughout this broad Muslim region. The cost has been staggering, both emotionally and financially. An enormous debt we will never pull ourselves out from under as we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Trump had run on an anti-war message in 2016. He desperately wanted to pull all troops out of the region, although it turns out it wasn't to save American lives, but rather to further Russian, Saudi and Turkish ambitions in the region. Dick Cheney and many of the other conservative hawks were appalled by Trump's decision to retreat in Syria and host the Taliban for peace talks. Nothing really came out of this, as Trump is long on words but short on actions, but they saw the infamous Bush doctrine lose much of its potency, to be replaced with a laissez-faire approach to foreign policy again.
Our Artful Dodger is trying to restart peace talks once again by giving his approval to the negotiations currently underway in Qatar to bring the nearly two decade war in Afghanistan to an end. At least this time the Afghan government has been invited. The Trump administration had excluded Afghan leaders in its initial discussions with the Taliban back in 2018. He even had the audacity to invite the Taliban to Camp David before news broke of the secret conference and forced him to cancel this ill-timed visit that was planned around this same time last year.
Trump never had the stomach for war, despite his bellicose words to the contrary. When Bolton and other conservative hawks pushed him to go to war with Iran over the tensions that had escalated to a fever pitch last year, the Donald demurred as he always does. Bolton had already been pushed out the door, as he was too much a war hawk for Donald's tastes.
The Bush doctrine was effectively dead at this point. The wars lingered on but America was more a bystander than an active participant. Russia and Turkey were carrying the burden of the war in Syria, which was now spilling over into Iraq. Saudi Arabia continued its atrocious war in Yemen, claiming it was defending itself against a proxy of Iran. It was learned this summer that Russia was quietly backing the Taliban and offering them bounties to pick off American soldiers. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan continue to tacitly support the Taliban as well. The Trump administration offered little resistance and virtually no direction.
The US military remains a powerful force, as well funded as ever, but it seems Trump wants to use it more to quiet unrest in his own country than he does abroad. This has been met with fierce resistance from the generals and his Defense Secretary Mark Esper. As it is, he has mobilized federal paramilitary forces to defend federal buildings in Portland, Oregon, and other cities under the authority of Attorney General Bill Barr.
It is safe to say, we failed to rein in the terror unleashed on September 11, 2001. In fact, we are a country on the brink of imploding, as Osama bin Laden predicted would be the case, often referring to the US in the same terms as the Soviet Union. Whether or not he was actually behind the 911 attacks is a moot point, but his legacy lives on, largely because of our untenable relationships in the Middle East, primarily that with Saudi Arabia.
If any one country was behind the audacious hijackings of 911, it was Saudi Arabia. They have long funded Muslim extremists around the world and the vast majority of the hijackers were Saudis. Yet, the US still maintains a close relationship with Saudi Arabia despite no apparent benefits other than to American oil companies and military suppliers. It was the fatal mistake of George Bush. Obama tried to steer US foreign policy in another direction, but the subsequent Trump administration has led us right back down this blind alley. Saudi Arabia is the root source of most of the violence in the region, not Iraq or Afghanistan or Iran.
We not only squandered the world's good will in the wake of 911, we continue to repeat the same mistakes that led to that horrible terrorist act, resulting in smaller terrorist acts on American soil. It is time we end our relationship with Saudi Arabia, only then can we hope to bring any measure of peace or stability to the region.
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