W strongly believes that history will judge him kindly and he will be remembered as the president who liberated the Iraqi people from Sadam Hussein’s tyranny. Will that be the case? I believe that history has already judged him and the legacy of his presidency will be a heavy burden over the shoulders of many American generations to come.

But it didn’t have to be that way. In fact, W could’ve been the greatest president in modern American history, if he and his administration had dared look beyond their own ambitions. Let me try to explain myself.

As September 11, 2001 came to an end, the whole world had its eyes fixed on New York City. Yes, a lot of people celebrated the tragic events of that infamous day, but most of the world aligned behind the U.S. in an act of solidarity. Even the anti-American French newspaper Le Monde published on its front page the phrase “We are all Americans” on its September 12th of 2001 edition.

Did Mr. Bush take advantage of that one-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Fred Kaplan answered this question better on his column War Stories on September 9th, 2003 How Bush blew the opportunity of 9/11.

But not only the world was united with the U.S. Americans forgot their differences (differences that sometimes seem so deep that I wonder how this country is kept together) and were ready to work together as one people to heal the nation. Instead of being the leader the hurt country needed, W worked hard in misleading the nation to an obscure alley of lies and war where Americans were reminded of the differences that set them apart from one another. That was another miscalculation of the Bush administration that has created a huge gap right in the middle of the country.

Will history be kinder to Mr. Bush in 20 years from now? Will future generations remember him as the president who planted the first seeds of democracy in Iraq and the whole region? Or will he be remembered as the president who alienated the allies that once rallied round the U.S.? This obscure chapter in the history of this great nation should be a lesson to the next president, whether a Democrat or Republican, that in this globalized world, where America’s lead is shrinking, having allies inside and outside the house matters.