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When President Bush first took office, his administration believed in the transforming power of democracy. The President, according to his own recent testimony, continues to accept the philosophy, broadly articulated by the Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, that the antidote to war and terrorism is democracy. I believe the president continues to hold this view even though the approach of his administration to international relations is changing. But the change is not so much the philosophy as it is the view that the United States can achieve its goals unilaterally. Doubt has also been cast on the premise that democracy in Iraq would lead to democracy throughout the region and that we can wage the war against terrorism through Iraq.

In the late nineties, as conservatives became increasingly incensed with the Clinton presidency, the feeling grew among neo-conservatives that the United States was mortgaging its interests to the international community and that vital US interests were being ignored or blocked by the narrow national interests of others. This was particularly true in the case of Iraq.

But as more and more questions have been raised about Iraq and the policies the neo-conservatives advocated, this faction has lost credibility. Very few of the major neo-conservative players are actually still around in central policymaking positions. Some have been dropped and some have been promoted out.

What this means is that the second Bush Administration is not the first Bush Administration. While there are still traces of the old attitude and ideology, there is a growing movement among Republicans to return to what is now being called neo-realism. It means that options for cooperation and common action not available in the first four years may be available today.

Despite neo-conservative views about the medicinal qualities of democracy, the driving force behind our attack on Iraq was not democracy or the horrors of the Saddam regime. This I know first hand from the initial NSC meetings when President Bush met with his new team in the administration. As one individual put it in those meetings, “I don’t give a damn about Saddam Hussein. I care about weapons of mass destruction falling into his hands.” And he wasn’t the only one who cared about that or assumed that Saddam had such weapons and was seeking more.

It is easy to revise history in the light of current knowledge. Today there are very few hardcore holdouts to the view that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction hidden and ready to use. But that was not the prevailing view even as late as our invasion of Baghdad. Colin Powell did not go before the assembled nations of the world and lie. He believed the evidence. In fact, we had a long history of conviction about Saddam Hussein’s capabilities and his inclinations.

There was no doubt in my mind at that time that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that he was seeking greater capabilities and that he would have no compunction about using them. The presumption was there and there was no percentage in taking a risk on the unlikely premise that he had destroyed his stockpiles or would refrain from their use.

This was not a problem of George W. Bush’s Administration. It was a comprehensive assumption of at least three presidents and all their senior advisors. And it was an assumption conveyed to me by my European colleagues as well.

At the beginning of the Bush administration, war was not a foregone conclusion. But by that time, diplomatic options were already dwindling, and we all have to take the credit for that. It was a failure of American leadership, of European leadership and of diplomacy on both sides.

In 1990-91 we put a rigorous sanctions policy into place. It was supposed to be temporary. But as time went on, it became increasingly onerous for the people of Iraq. Children were affected, and Saddam was having a propaganda windfall as he convinced the people of the region and in Europe that he was the victim. The result was that the sanctions were being eaten away by some of our closest friends in the region and here in Europe.

At this point it is important to admit that our policy was driven not only by assumptions about Saddam Hussein, but also by assumptions about some of our allies. We have stereotypes of other countries just as we are stereotyped. There was an assumption in Washington, for example, that France was willing to see the erosion of the sanctions because of its desire for contracts in Iraq and that the Russians wanted to collect on their massive debt.

Furthermore, while we in the United States advocate democracy, many policymakers in Washington tend to forget that our friends in Europe are democracies and have public opinions. And public opinion was strongly running against the impact of sanctions on the Iraqi people.

At the same time, assumptions about the Bush Administration and about the president himself may have led Europeans to stack the deck against their own advice and influence on military intervention in Iraq. Bush-bashing was popular among many in the United States, but also in Europe. Through public and private comments, there was a tendancy to reinforce the impression at the highest levels in the American administration that Europe was opposed to President Bush and did not respect him. Arrogant, aggressive, a bully, immoral, materialistic and spoiled - that is how Americans think others view us.

Insofar as these views were expressed in Europe at the time, it did not auger well for a constructive dialogue. What I have seen over 35 years of working with politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties is that they tend to have thin skins. They also have an exaggerated need for loyalty. I do not think President Bush is any exception to these tendencies. Thus, when he says you are either with us or against us, it takes on a very personal construction.

Whatever the reasons, collectively we allowed the sanctions policy to atrophy during the Clinton years and we were not able to reinforce it in the early days of the Bush administration. We also lost the solid coalition that had opposed Saddam Hussein in Kuwait. The message to Saddam was clear: the sanctions were crumbling, he did not have to worry about a unified opposition against him, and the United States was unable to gain the support of its old allies.

The collapse of our Iraq policy and our diplomacy crept up on us while the Clinton administration was focused almost exclusively on the Israelis and Palestinians and Camp David. I certainly cannot prove that a stronger, harsher, more coordinated policy with our allies from the mid-1990s on would have led to a different result. There are times when war is the only answer. But we owe it to ourselves to examine the history and to see if other outcomes may have been possible if we had moved more rapidly together and followed other courses.

The war was engaged and the campaign of “Shock and Awe” was brilliant. The aftermath has not been so brilliant. The question now is how can we deal with the current problems in Iraq?

I think there was a telling statement by Donald Rumsfeld before members of the House Armed Services Committee on September 29. He said that “insurgencies ultimately are defeated by the indigenous people in that country, not by outside forces, because outside forces can in fact contribute to the growth of an insurgency if they are seen as an occupation force.” You can read this statement in several ways. It could just be a fact of life. It could also be, however, the beginning of the administration preparing the ground for an exit strategy in Iraq.

In either case, we all have to take a hard look at what happens to our collective interests if the United States pulls back from Iraq, like it did in Somalia and Lebanon. The fallout of a premature withdrawal, if it leads to collapse into civil war or chaos, will affect us all. It would surely lead to the growth of terrorism and radical fundamentalist credibility. It would swell the ranks of their recruits. And another victory for asymetrical warfare and terrorism over a major power, in this case a superpower, would unleash forces that could embroil us all. In short, this could be a strategy for losing the war on terrorism – it certainly would not be one for winning it.

If Donald Rumsfeld is right, and the United States is becoming part of the problem, then we have to start looking for solutions that reduce the US profile as an occupying power while still retaining the ability to prevent civil war and chaos. The other day, a US commander indicated in the press that it was only because the US sat on the seam between the Shiite and Sunni populations that the country had not already disentigrated into civil war. We are going to need some seam-sitters. And for this, I frankly don’t see any feasible solution unless others with a lower profile are willing to lend a hand. That means we have to begin thinking about the United Nations, NATO or a regional force to support Iraq’s limited capabilities in order to stabilize the situation, even while the US forces remain to take the lead in tracking down and destroying irreconcilable terrorists and hard core insurgents. We are doing this in Afghanistan; we may have to have a repeat performance in Iraq. Whether the US administration is ready for this is still a big question mark.

I expect that we still need to go along the current path at least until we see the results of the political process that is about to take place. The referendum on the constitution is likely to succeed. Those who know Iraq tell me that while the constitution will likely fail the two-thirds vote in al-Anbar province and possibly in a second province, it will not fail in a third province and thus will be passed.

Some of my friends are saying that it would be better if the constitution failed and the Iraqis had to go back to negotiations. Their reasoning is that the current draft is so badly flawed that it will be a divisive force in Iraq, leading to further violence with no early prospects for reconciliation. I think they do not take into account the enormous boost a failure of the constitution would give to the insurgents who would become even more obdurate in their demands. The better course, it seems to me, is to hope for passage and then work for accommodating adjustments by the majority acting from a position of strength.

Regardless of the outcome of events in Iraq, we still must ask ourselves, how can we better prepare ourselves for the next Iraq? Or better yet, how can we anticipate and avoid the next Iraq? And this is where the concept of transforming the Middle East comes into play. We have not proven to be very good at prediction, but if future crises depend on the cooperation of others, and if the United States has any role to play, which in both cases I believe to be the case, then we must take a hard look at America’s standing in the world.

The Pew Global Attitudes project tracks the standing of the US in major countries in most regions of the world. The last temperature check in June of this year was a pretty appalling predictor of our ability to engage others in support of our policies. If we take a look at the favorable opinion of the US in Canada, it has fallen from 71% in the year 2000 to 59% in 2005. Britain is more troubling — 89% favorable in 2000, 55% in 2005. Germany slipped from 78% to 41%. And in Jordan? Forget it: 25% in 2000 and 21% in 2005.

Now it is not true that popular attitudes are direct predictors of governmental actions. In Jordan, for example, King Abdullah is way out in front of his people in his support of America. In virtually every Arab country the king or president is out in front of his people and more willing to support us than his people would be. But some of these leaders are getting tired of being exposed. Some are tired of the constant criticism they hear from the US media and our Congress. Some are ready to wash their hands of us. And that is not a good sign for our future ability to drive policies in the region to our advantage.

Before the Iraq war, I traveled through the Middle East. In conversation after conversation with leaders in the region I was warned, and so I am sure our government was warned too, that “Iraq is not like any other Arab country. It is not Kuwait. It is not Egypt. You will not be welcomed with open arms. You are releasing forces you can’t control. There is a risk of chaos and you will strengthen extremists throughout the region.”

Our failure was not a failure of intelligence; it was failure to listen or, perhaps, to understand what we were hearing. Or maybe we didn’t think we had to listen. I think we have had a hard time adapting to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps we took too seriously the hyperbole of the United States being the world’s only superpower. We got caught up in an ideology of unilateralism that flew in the face of our long-standing policies of alliances and common action.

No matter how many boots we have on the ground, we cannot win the war on terrorism in Iraq — the scope of our battlefield has to be a lot broader than that. We have to win this war wherever there is support for the terrorist ideology. And that means we have to have common cause with countries and leaders spanning the globe.

King Abdullah of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Mubarak of Egypt — these are some of the men who are on the frontlines of the war on terror.

If we are to win this war we also have to work closely together with the EU and with the countries of the region in the transformation process in order to reduce the precursors of terrorism — frustration, hopelessness, joblessness, and anger at injustice. We and the EU can support this process but we cannot lead it. And as we have shown in Iraq, we cannot bomb people into democracy. They have to want it, and to want it they have to understand it. We are talking about education, time and opportunity.

For our part, we in the United States must begin the process of repairing our image to regain the high ground. People are not going to find democracy very appealing if all they can expect is to exchange official corruption at home for the kind of personal and corporate corruption the United States is suffering. And the case for democracy is not compelling if it means exchanging their arbitrary incarceration and physical intimidation practices for Guantanamo and Abu Gharib. The problem with our image may be partly the result of our policies and exaggerated expectations of what the United States can do. But according to many of my friends in the region, it is also the disappointment that the United States no longer stands for the values it professes.

If we do our part, live by our principles, forge the necessary alliances, work together, and support those who are allied in the fight, we will discredit and delegitimize those who call for self-immolation. Then, and only then, will we make progress against terrorism.