The Conclusion

The transfer of power from President Bush to his Democratic successor Barack Obama marks the end of a political era in the United States, the beginning of which was marked by the tragedy of 9/11, and the end of which is significant as one of the deepest economic crises of modern history.

Between both milestones, a succession of transcendent events happened, including the aggression against Iraq, the violation of human rights in Iraq, and each time it is more evident with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other locations, the grave errors committed after Hurricane Katrina practically destroyed New Orleans in 2005 and the unregulated financial market that resulted in this crisis of unforeseeable proportions.

President Bush assumed his first presidential term on 1/20/01. A few months after that, the attacks against the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington were committed. They were attacks even more moving than the one against Pearl Harbor, which revealed the existence of an Islamic terrorist movement that was widespread and little known by the majority, but with a considerable capacity for destruction.

Many of the events that took place in the following years were responses to that attack. Also, in the case of the invasion of Iraq, those events were put forth to justify actions that pursued other objectives.

The decision of President Bush to embark on a military campaign against Iraq, buried his country in such political difficulty that it is having a hard time overcoming it. The cost of human suffering has been immense, as there have been hundreds of thousands of lives lost in Iraq, the war has cost North American taxpayers 600 billion dollars, and the international prestige of that world power has suffered grave injuries.

The invasion, because it was deemed necessary to concentrate recourse in Iraq, gave the Taliban and al-Qaeda time to newly consolidate their position in Afghanistan.

The people are able to tolerate errors committed by their own governments. In exchange it costs them to accept what people perceive to be a lack of sincerity. The credibility of President Bush was just another low point of the war against Iraq.

The actions taken demonstrated that the reasons put forth by the government of the United States to justify the attack against Iraq were fundamentally lacking: the government of Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, nor were they involved with al-Qaeda (with all its defects, Saddam Hussein’s political party had layman’s knowledge, and were enemies of the fundamentals of al-Qaeda). In addition, the Iraqis did not anxiously await the liberating intervention of the North American forces to establish a western democracy.

The figures regarding Bush’s popularity are revealing. Initially in January 2001, the president had an approval rating of more than 50 percent that lasted through September 10th of that year. The terrorist attacks of the following day reflected a steep incline in his approval rating (between 80% and 90%, according to the poll). Today, as he ends his term, this outstanding president has one of the lowest approval ratings in the history of his country: between 20%-30%.

Meanwhile, the new president maintains an approval rating of 70%.