The 9/11 Presidency

The 9/11 Presidency - WSJ.com :
"Whatever history's ultimate judgment, Mr. Bush never did yield. Nearly all the significant battles of the Bush years -- the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Guantanamo and wiretapping, upheavals in the Middle East, America's troubles with Europe -- stemmed directly from his response to the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that defined his Presidency.

By his own standard, Mr. Bush achieved the one big thing he and all Americans demanded of his Administration. Not a single man, woman or child has been killed by terrorists on U.S. soil since the morning of September 11. Al Qaeda was flushed from safe havens in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and its terrorist network put under siege around the world. All subsequent terror attacks hit soft targets and used primitive means. No one seriously predicted such an outcome at the time ...

After the Clinton decade in which al Qaeda and proliferation went unchallenged, the Bush Presidency had to scramble to defend against a terror threat that with WMD could kill millions of Americans. His decision to fight this as a "war," and to marshal the means attendant to war, has been controversial and expensive. But like Harry Truman's decisions at the onset of the Cold War, we suspect more of his policy will survive than his many critics now admit ...

The world remains a very dangerous place. Yet thanks to Mr. Bush's post-9/11 willingness to act decisively, and at the risk of his own popularity, Americans are safer today than on September 10, 2001."