Post-Cold War American Foreign Policy
Part II: George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism
VUS.13~ What impact have presidents of the United States had on foreign policysince 1988?
VUS.15 ~ What is the role of the United States in a world confronted by international terrorism?
In 2000 George Walker Bush, son of former President George H. W. Bush, won election to the presidency in one of the closest elections in American history. On 11 September 2001, the Bush administration faced an unexpected foreign policy crisis, when Islamic terrorists flew two hijacked commercial jet planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Terrorists crashed a third hijacked jet into the Pentagon. The resulting death toll totaled nearly 3,000 Americans and citizens of other countries. Since this terrorist attack on 9/11/2001, the United States has formulated (made) domestic and international policy in an effort to confront terrorism. International efforts have included both diplomatic and military initiatives (ventures).
Al-Qaeda, a radical Islamic organization led by Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for these devastating suicide attacks on American soil. President George W. Bushimmediately declared a War on Terrorism with strong bipartisan support from Congress. (Bipartisan support means both Democrats and Republicans agreed with the president on this issue.) In this spirit of national unity Congress passed the Patriot Act in October 2001. The stated purpose of the Patriot Act was “to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world [and] to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools.” In other words, the Patriot Act tried to make it easier for the federal government to catch and prosecute terrorists, who threatened the United States. Critics of the act have argued it weakens the constitutional protection of civil liberties. Although federal courts have declared some provisions of the Patriot Act unconstitutional and controversy and concern about this law have continued, Congress renewed the Patriot Act in 2006.
In the same month Congress originally passed the Patriot Act, the Bush administration launched Operation Enduring Freedom, a military attack on the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The Taliban had given shelter to bin Laden and allowed Al-Qaeda to train terrorists within Afghanistan’s borders. Although American and NATO forces successfully removed the Taliban from power by mid-2002, pockets of Taliban and Al-Qaeda resistance have continued to oppose American efforts to remove terrorists from Afghanistan and bringstability to the democratically elected government of President Hamid Karzai. At the end of 2008 American troops stationed in Afghanistan continued to suffer casualties at the hands of the Taliban.
While waging war against the Taliban in 2002, the Bush administration simultaneously turned its attention towards Iraq and its dictator Saddam Hussein. President George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein’s government was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in violation of United Nations resolutions and was continuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons. These weapons of mass destruction allegedly included both chemical and biological weapons, which President Bush argued Iraq could give terrorists for use against the United States and its allies. In October 2002 Congress passed a resolution giving President Bush power to use military force against Iraq. This congressional resolution authorized the president “to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”
After the Bush administration concluded that Saddam Hussein was failing to cooperate adequately with United Nations weapons inspectors, President Bush ordered the American military to invade Iraq in March 2003. The Iraqi government collapsed in April 2003, and by the end of the year American forces had captured Saddam Hussein. However, a peaceful transfer of power to a new government failed to occur. Ethnic and religious differences emerged to divide the Iraqi people. Although a majority of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims, Saddam Hussein and his advisers were Sunni Muslims. Once the Americans removed Hussein from power, some Shiite religious leaders insisted that American troops should leave their country immediately and permit the Iraqi people to create an Islamic state. In contrast, the Bush administration wanted the Iraqis to establish a western style democracy, which recognized minority rights. Opposition to the American occupation of Iraq quickly grew and resulted in increased violence in the form of suicide bombings and attacks by insurgent forces. (An insurgent is one who rebels against the government.) After it became clear to the American people that U.S. troops would not find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the war would drag on indefinitely, American support for the war decreased and President George W. Bush’s job approval rating dropped dramatically.
In May 2006, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite leader, became prime minister of Iraq, after the Sunnis and Kurds agreed to accept his election. (The Kurds, whom Saddam Hussein often persecuted, are the dominant ethnic group in northern Iraq.) When the Maliki government proved unable to bring order to Iraq and violence increased, the Bush administration announced a change in its military policy. In January 2007, President Bush announced a troop surge and sent 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. By mid-2008, the “surge” appeared to be working to some extent, as violence in Iraq had diminished. Nevertheless, American forces in Iraq continued to experience weekly casualties, there was no end in sight to the American occupation, and the Iraqi war had emerged as the chief foreign policy issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, won the 2008 presidential election. Thereby, Obama became the first African-American to serve as president of the United States. During his first year in office, President Obama substantially increased the number of American combat troops serving in Afghanistan. Simultaneously, he has pursued a policy of gradually withdrawing American servicemen from combat roles in Iraq.
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VA/US History Narrative 27