The Bush Doctrine, advanced after 9/11, comes down to the idea that American and global security is best advanced by toppling repressive and hostile regimes through any means possible, including principally force.
The appeal of the doctrine has always been more emotional than intellectual: it provided a needed outlet for swelling feelings of anger, pride, and patriotism after 9/11, allowing Americans to feel powerful again after the unprecedented blow of watching the twin towers - America's two front teeth - knocked out by an enemy we barely knew we had.
Intellectually, the doctrine was never as satisfying. Its principle flaw was taking for granted a host of things that were expected to flow from the toppling of these hostile regimes that, in practice, have proven elusive. While Bush claimed that his mantra was the extension of liberty, this outcome was presumed rather than effected through deliberate policies. It was assumed that broad international support, the embrace of formerly repressed peoples and the flowering of stable democracy not only in the affected territory but in surrounding states as well would all naturally emerge from these US-led ousters.
Had these consequences resulted, Bush might have been right that the initial trigger - the overthrows of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein - started of a chain of events that measurably enhanced US security. Since the ensuring consequences were anything but what Bush predicted, the toppling of the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq has had the opposite effect.
The blindness in the Bush Doctrine was failing to recognize that the key to American security lay not with the removal of hostile regimes, but with their successful replacement with stable and broadly supported alternatives. Going a step further, Bush failed to foresee that without the latter piece, the initial topplings could create a level of anarchy and regional instability, more dangerous for both the affected regions and the US, than before.
Worse still, even as it became apparent that dissolution and chaos threatened to undo any positive results of the removal of Saddam Hussein, Bush denied the problem. He failed to enlist international help years ago when that was still possible, and has since then tersely insisted that he is providing his Generals with whatever they ask for, ignoring the unmistakable evidence that what they've asked for, and what they're doing, won't reap anything close to the gains promised.
Elsewhere, elections have brought radicals to power in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Sarah Chayes, in her new book, The Punishment of Virtue, talks about resurgent Afghan support for the Taliban: they miss the stability and cannot stand the corruption and disruptions of life under Hamid Karzai's tremulous government. The Bush Doctrine ignores this implacable contradiction as well. His amounts to a trickle-down theory of democracy - that the empowerment of radicals and fundamentalists, because it is through democratic means, will somehow, in time, redound to the benefit of the moderates we ultimately hope to strengthen.
Its not as simple as amending the Bush Doctrine to put more emphasis on what happens after the fall. While we have the capability to eject hostile regimes, the last five years have demonstrated that our capacity to facilitate stable and friendly alternatives in their wake is dubious at best. Both Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate that the latter is much harder than the former. This forces back open the question of whether, given the inability to guarantee better alternatives, ouster is the right first step.
Full recognition of the challenges of rebuilding at the very least counsels a set of criteria for evaluating when uprooting unfriendly regimes is wise, and how to go about it: the availability of international support and aid; the spoiler potential of regional neighbors; the political, social and military infrastructure in the targeted country; and the depth of anti-American and anti-Western attitudes among the population all need to be considered.
Does anything of the Bush Doctrine deserve to survive five years on? A few kernels: owning up to the limitations of a policy predicated on supporting dictators who proved reliable as allies, regardless of how they are perceived in their own countries; a broad bias in favor of democracy even under conditions that make it tough to establish or to sustain. But with the very concept of democracy now discredited in regions that should crave it most, and with approaches that deserve to be cast out now looking better and better in comparison to the more misguided policies that replaced them, these valid elements don't come close to redeeming the doctrine.
Tomorrow, President Bush will wrap himself in the mantle of 9/11, trying to once again awaken the elemental, emotional appeal that fueled his doctrine in the first place. Let us not be fooled.