NEW DELHI -- One year after the invasion of Iraq, the U.S.-led global war on terror stands derailed, even as the scourge of terrorism has spread to more nations. The U.S. occupation of Iraq has proved divisive in international relations, splitting the world and fracturing the post-9/11 global consensus to fight terror.
Instead of targeting terrorist cells and networks wherever they exist, U.S. President George W. Bush is being compelled by critics at home and abroad to justify his invasion of Iraq. In the process, it has been virtually forgotten that 9/11 happened not because of Iraq but because of the terrorist nurseries in the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt. In fact, by speciously linking Iraq with al-Qaeda to justify its invasion, Washington created a self-fulfilling prophesy that now haunts it.
The Iraq mess has discredited Bush's doctrine of preemption, weakening his hand against North Korea, for example. Bush showed that while the sole superpower can do as it pleases, it can neither preempt chaos nor win peace. American "soft power" has been a major casualty of the Iraq occupation, which has helped portray the United States as ham-fisted and unconcerned about the opinions of other states.
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