Bush Makes the World More Dangerous: is This Even in Doubt?

Nice essay from Michael Hirsh in Newsweek. He argues that Bush's cowboy approach to the "war on terror" has been an utter disaster. By equating Hamas and Hizbollah with Al Qaeda, and by equating Saddam with Bin Laden, the Bush administration has inflamed the middle east, boosted the position of Iran, and generally made the world a less safe place. He notes:

"And what began as a hunt for a relatively contained group of self-declared murderers like bin Laden became a feckless dragnet of tens of thousands of hapless Arab victims like the sons of the hostel owner in Samarra, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or terror, just as Saddam had little to do with Al Qaeda, just as the Iraqi insurgency had little to do with Al Qaeda (at least at the start), just as Hizbullah has nothing to do with Al Qaeda. And as the war broadened beyond reason, and the world questioned the legitimacy of the enterprise, our friends dropped away. Worse, we have found ourselves making enemies in the Islamic world faster than we could round them up or kill them."