International assistance
Intervention should be avoided at all costs. The US should help weak and failed states gain legitimacy through foreign aid and other forms of assistance. This choice requires the US to increase its foreign aid and assistance programs. In truly dire situations, the US would support UN-led peacekeeping interventions but would still condemn outright unilateral military intervention.
As President George W. Bush, you have made a series of choices dealing with America's counter-terrorism policies. Let's analyze your choices and their implications.
Your decision to pull out of the Middle East will constrain America's ability to conduct successful interventions. You hope that pulling the US out of the Middle East in the short term will reduce the blowback effect of intervention.
Invading Iraq after removing US forward presence was a bad decision. The Iraq war will be large and arduous. The American military will suffer many casualties and financial costs. If something goes awry, it will not be easy to deploy a greater amount of military resources to aid in the mission. The lack of forward presence elsewhere in the Middle East means that the probability of success in Iraq is quite low.
Next, you decided to increase American foreign assistance to future weak and failed states. As you may recall from previous chapters, foreign aid is generally ineffective. The recipient government must be able and willing to efficiently allocate these resources. Corrupt officials, authoritarianism, lack of distribution networks, and strong non-state groups all threaten the effectiveness of the aid. Minimizing interventionism in the long run may reduce the probability of blowback radicalization and terrorism, but you should expect terrorism to continue to thrive as safe havens will likely continue to exist.
The issues of terrorism and weak/failed states do not have easy solutions, but you have done a particularly poor job. Your strategy to deal with the threat of terrorism will ultimately fail. Additionally, the war in Iraq will be catastrophic, costly, and lengthy. Overall, you have not assuaged the American public and will not get re-elected in 2004.