Responsibility to Protect
When a state poses an international threat to security or an internal threat to the freedom of its people, the international community has the responsibility to intervene and protect human rights and international security. This choice requires a robust forward presence of the US military. Additionally, you, as President Bush, would alert the international community to an American commitment to protecting ideals of human rights and security.
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.
Furthermore, after a new round of IAEA inspections, it is found that Iraq is not pursuing nuclear weapons, but that it maintains a stockpile of chemical weapons that could be transferred to terrorists. Saddam Hussein decides to pursue stringent safeguards and allow future IAEA inspections in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions on Iraq. However, Iraq could easily hide a smaller stockpile of chemical weapons if it so chooses.
In a vacuum, illustrating American commitment to the Responsibility to Protect would boost American credibility among its allies. This approach would also allow the US to pre-emptively exert force to stop terrorist organizations from gaining power. The war on terror would likely never end, but America would be able to minimize the probability that a terrorist attack on American soil is successful. However, this long-term choice is directly contradictory to your short-term decision to pull out of the Middle East. This means you will not reap any long-term benefits from pulling out because your re-intervention will inevitably result in blowback.
The issues of terrorism and weak/failed states do not have easy solutions, but you have done a particularly poor job. You have not adopted a coherent strategy to deal with the threat of terrorism. Overall, you have not assuaged the American public and will not get re-elected in 2004.