- Activites
- October 27, 2008
- 2 minutes read
The Bush Legacy Ctd.

MESH concludes its series assessing the legacy of the Bush administration in the Middle East:
Steven Cook praises Bush for effort, and gives him credit for speaking out on Arab democracy and human rights, but fails him on execution. “[N]ot only have they not achieved their goals in the region…, but in most cases Washington’s approach has produced precisely the opposite of the desired effect.”
Mark Clark says that in Iraq, “Bush has restored the belief that the United States can fight and win an insurgency.” Despite an enduring failure on the Iranian nuclear program, and a mixed Israel-Palestine record, Clark concludes, “we are better off than we were eight years ago.”
Jon Alterman concludes that “[t]he Bush administration has little of which to be proud.” While the jury is still out on Iraq, the war emboldened Iran, Syria, and their proxies, leaving the U.S. with “far less pull in the region than it had a decade ago.”