BUSH'S LEGACY OF FOREIGN POLICY CATASTROPHES

For a compendium of the foreign policies catastrophes of George W. Bush and his adoring Secretary of State Condi Rice, take a look at the short but comprehensive posting of Nir Rosen on Steve Clemon's The Washington Note last Friday.

Whether it be Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, Bush has created hornet nests of anti-American turmoil and resentment.

For example, Bush refuses to deal or even talk with leaders of Hamas, even though Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians in Gaza in a free and fair election more than two years ago. Instead, Bush, the great champion of "democracy," makes enemies of Hamas by deeming it "terrorist," and instead befriends those autocratic and, by the way, Sunni, anti-democratic governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

The same with Hezbollah, comprising almost all of the Shiite population of Lebanon. Bush has declared Hezbollah a "terrorist organization" and has armed the non-Shiite Lebanese Army with sophisticated deadly war munitions in hopes of inciting an all-out civil war.

Yet Bush congratulates Israel on its 60th birthday and allies the U.S. with Ehud Olmert even though it was Olmert who ordered the carpet bombing to a depth of 30 miles of southern Lebanon with child-maiming cluster bombs at the end of the last Israel-Lebanon war.

Bush has been a disaster for foreign policy. Together with Cheney and Rice, Bush has succeeded in making the U.S. a pariah among nations. It will take at least 100 years to overcome his legacy of war and aggression.