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.
The foreign aid to the government in Kabul will be ineffective at empowering the central government enough to drive out the Taliban. At this point, the Taliban are too strong for the Kabul-based government to deal with. This means al-Qaeda will continue to utilize Afghanistan as a safe haven. That being said, if another terrorist attack on American soil were to occur, then your forward presence in the Middle East would be utilized to stage an 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.
Illustrating American commitment to the responsibility to protect will boost American credibility among its allies. This approach will also allow the US to pre-emptively exert force to stop terrorist organizations from gaining power. The war on terror will likely never end, but America will be able to minimize the probability that a terrorist attack on American soil is successful.
The issues of terrorism and weak/failed states do not have easy solutions, but you have done a fair job. You have not sufficiently dealt with the threat of al-Qaeda in the short term, but you maintain long-term flexibility for intervention. Furthermore, you have assuaged the American public and will get re-elected in 2004.