How will future generations view President Bush?

As the curtains are drawn on George W. Bush’s presidency he appears to have cemented a position as the worst president in United States history. But is this fair?

On his watch, New York and Washington were attacked on September 11, 2001, America started two wars, and the current economic woes have many staring down the barrel of  bankruptcy.

He leaves office with an approval rating at 23 per cent, one of the worst in history.

Bush will probably never be considered a great president, but in time and with the benefit of hindsight his reputation may be reassessed and some of his more controversial policies, such as the Bush Doctrine and the War on Terror, may even come to be viewed as visionary, if bungled in execution.

Just look at former president Harry Truman, who was singularly unpopular when he left office but is highly rated now.

At Bush’s inauguration on January 20, 2001, he promised to be a “uniter, and not a divider”, someone, he said, who didn’t want to “play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another”.

He wanted to be a leader in the mould of Reagan or Thatcher and consolidate a Republican majority in US politics.

Bush was considered to be a moral conviction politician, a refreshing change after the sleaze of the Clinton years.

It was expected he would focus on domestic affairs and no one was predicting he would become so hugely polarising for his foreign policy.

This all changed eight months into his first term with the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Bush faced one of the most damaging attacks on the US psyche since Pearl Harbour and overnight became a war-time president.

His conservative and neo-con advisers, who saw the attack as an affront to American democratic values, wanted a suitably stiff response from him.

The War on Terror was born.Within days, the hard-line Taliban regime in Afghanistan  was targeted.

The US army entered Afghanistan less than a month later, on October 7.

Terrorist attacks around the world continued and Bush’s advisers began informing him of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

They claimed Hussein’s Ba’ath Party had weapons of mass destruction ready to strike and was trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

This proved to be false, but Hussein’s tyrannical regime, guilty of chemical attacks on the Kurdish populace, was seen as unstable by the neo-cons who saw an opportunity to create a stable, functioning democracy in the Middle East.

Bush’s controversial leadership has drawn parallels with that of Truman, who was condemned at the end of his presidency and finished with an approval rating of 22 per cent, lower than where Bush is currently.

Like Bush, he started an unpopular war (with Korea), faced huge economic difficulties, and governed over a widely politically divided domestic climate.

Like Bush, he stood by his convictions to the detriment of his own character and party.

History has been kind to Truman however, and many prominent political scholars now rank him within the top 10 US presidents.

Although the current credit crunch, and the September 11 attack happened on Bush’s watch, he cannot be blamed for either crisis.

If Bush had served during Clinton’s years he would arguably have survived with his reputation intact.

Bush has had a very difficult presidency, and attempts to portray him as asleep at the wheel are inaccurate.

Clinton, during his presidency, faced the rise of Al Qaeda, the troubled Balkan region and the Somalian crisis. He dallied on all three, to the detriment of his successor.

September 11 may have happened during Bush’s term but it was planned during Clinton’s.

The current financial crisis is also not Bush’s doing – both sides of the political spectrum had general consensus on the benefits of sub-prime lending – indeed it is likely the Democrats   would have allowed increased credit lending.

Bush’s desired legacy of a sustainable Republican majority in the US looks unlikely to come to pass; a poorly performing economy, continued trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan and the general feeling of distaste for the previous eight years will probably put that out of reach.

His grander aim, the building of a stable democratic nation in the Middle East, will also not happen during his presidency.

However his commitment to the recent troop surge in Iraq, which set him at odds with many in his own party, has set the wheels in motion for increasing Iraqi self-autonomy.

Civilian attacks are down, there has been a move for greater dialogue between the US army and the Sunni and Shia factions and the Iraqi government is slowly stabilising.

If the US and coalition partners can rebuild Iraq – having rid the world of Hussein’s fascist Ba’ath Party – and are able to replace it with a stable democracy,  perhaps when the dust of history has settled Bush will be viewed in a kinder light.