Research question 1 :9/11 attack9/11 terrorist attacksOn the morning of 11 September 2001, 19 hijackers took control of four commercial passenger jets flying out of airports on the east coast of the United States.Two of the aircraft were deliberately flown into the main two towers (the Twin Towers) of the World Trade Center in New York, with a third hitting thePentagonin Virginia.The fourth plane never reached its intended target, crashing in Pennsylvania. It is believed that the passengers and crew overpowered the hijackers and took control of the plane.Symbolic attacksThe Twin Towers were widely considered to be symbols of America's power and influence. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense.Both 110-floor World Trade Center towers subsequently collapsed and substantial damage was caused to one wing of the Pentagon. Numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan were destroyed or badly damaged.The total loss of life on 9/11 was nearly 3,000, including the 19 hijackers. It was the worst loss of life due to a terrorist incident on US soil.The days that followed saw a significant effect on world economic markets and international confidence.Suspicion falls on al-QaedaSuspicion soon fell on the radical Sunni Islamist group, al-Qaeda ('The Base' in Arabic) founded in 1988 and led by Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden.There was good reason for this. Although difficult to confirm, it is thought al-Qaeda's involvement in world terrorism can be traced back to 1993, with thefirst World Trade Center bombing.Over the next 8 years, al-Qaeda were implicated in a series of major attacks on US forces: theshooting down of two American Black Hawk helicopters in Somaliain October 1993, the killing of 19 Americans in a bombing at a military housing complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996, thebombing of US embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobiin 1998, with the loss of 223 lives, and thesuicide attack on the USS Colein 2000, which killed 17 servicemen and wounded 39.In 1996 Bin Laden called for his followers to "launch a guerrilla war against American forces and expel the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula"Soon after the 1998 embassy bombings,The Federal Bureau of Investigationplaced Bin Laden on their Ten Most Wanted list, offering a reward of $25million for his capture.A new kind of enemyOn the night of 11 September, with al-Qaeda widely believed to have conducted the attacks, President George W Bush described the events of that day as "evil, despicable acts of terror" and said the US was "at war with a new and different kind of enemy". The attack was denounced by governments worldwide.In October 2001, attacks were launched on Afghanistan by western coalition forces in conjunction with the anti-Taliban Afghan Northern Alliance

Research q no 2: changes in foreign policy and measures in response to 9/11September 11 in RetrospectTen years after 9/11, we can begin to gain some perspective on the impact of that day's terrorist attacks on U.S. foreign policy. There was, and there remains, a natural tendency to say that the attacks changed everything. But a decade on, such conclusions seem unjustified. September 11 did alter the focus and foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. But the administration's new approach, one that garnered so much praise and so much criticism, was less transformative than contemporaries thought. Much of it was consistent with long-term trends in U.S. foreign policy, and much has been continued by President Barack Obama. Some aspects merit the scorn often heaped on them; other aspects merit praise that was only grudging in the moment. Wherever one positions oneself, it is time to place the era in context and assess it as judiciously as possible.BEFORE AND AFTERBefore 9/11, the Bush administration had focused its foreign policy attention on China and Russia; on determining whether a Middle East peace settlement was in the cards; on building a ballistic missile defense system; and on contemplating how to deal with "rogue" states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea. At many meetings of the National Security Council, officials debated the pros and cons of a new sanctions regime against Saddam Hussein's dictatorial government in Baghdad; they also discussed what would be done if U.S. planes enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq were shot down. Little was agreed on.Top officials did not consider terrorism or radical Islamism a high priority. Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism expert on the National Security Council staff, might hector them relentlessly about the imminence of the threat, and CIA Director George Tenet might say the lights were blinking red. But Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were not convinced. Nor was Bush. In August 2001, he went to his ranch for a long vacation. Osama bin Laden was not his overriding concern.Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld did not invent preemptive and preventive war; they have a long history in U.S. foreign policy.Bush's foreign policy and defense advisers were trying to define a strategic framework and adapt U.S. armed forces to the so-called revolution in military affairs. The president himself was beginning to speak more about free trade and remaking U.S. foreign aid. During the presidential campaign, he had talked about both a humbler foreign policy and a reinvigorated defense establishment; how he was going to reconcile those goals was still unclear. But in truth, the president's focus was elsewhere, on the domestic arena -- tax cuts, education reform, faith-based voluntarism, energy policy. And then, suddenly, disaster struck.In response to the attacks, the administration launched a "global war on terror." It chose to focus not on al Qaeda alone but on the worldwide terrorist threat more generally. And it targeted not only deadly nonstate actors but also the regimes that harbored and succored them. To extract actionable intelligence, it resorted to detention, rendition, and, in a few cases, torture.The administration announced that it was adopting a policy of anticipatory self-defense -- essentially, preventive warfare. Bush declared that he would take action to preclude not only imminent threats but also gathering ones, and would act alone if necessary. This approach led eventually to war not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq as well.The administration also emphasized democratization and the notion of a democratic peace. These became key ingredients of the Bush doctrine, especially after weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were not found in Iraq. "We are led by events and common sense to one conclusion," Bush said in his second inaugural address, in January 2005. "The survival of liberty in our land depends on the success of liberty in other lands." Three years after that, as she was about to leave office, Rice also presented this position, saying that she and her colleagues had come to recognize "that democratic state-building is now an urgent component of our national interest."After 9/11, there was an accelerated buildup of U.S. military and intelligence capabilities. Defense expenditures skyrocketed; counterinsurgency initiatives proliferated; new bases were constructed throughout Central and Southwest Asia; a new military command in Africa was established. The war on terror became the preoccupation of the Bush administration's national security policy.Alongside its security policies, the administration embraced free markets, trade liberalization, and economic development. It reconfigured and hugely augmented the United States' foreign aid commitments, increasing economic assistance, for example, from about $13 billion in 2000 to about $34 billion in 2008. The administration fought disease, becoming the largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It negotiated a deal reducing strategic warheads with Russia, reconfigured the United States' relationship with India, and smoothed over its rocky start with China. And it continued to try to thwart the proliferation of WMD while forging ahead with its work on a ballistic missile defense system. These efforts complemented each other, as the administration was intent on not allowing the proliferation of WMD to stymie its freedom of action in regions deemed important. Nor did it wish to risk the possibility that rogue states might give or sell WMD to terrorists.Most of these policies -- preemption (really prevention), unilateralism, military supremacy, democratization, free trade, economic growth, alliance cohesion, and great-power partnerships -- were outlined in the administration's 2002 National Security Strategy, a document composed not in the Office of the Vice President or the Pentagon by neoconservatives but in the office of then National Security Adviser Rice, largely by Philip Zelikow, an outside consultant, and revised by Rice and her aides before being edited by Bush himself.September 11, in short, galvanized the Bush administration and prompted it to shift its focus. Fear inspired action, as did a sense of U.S. power, a pride in national institutions and values, a feeling of responsibility for the safety of the public, and a sense of guilt over having allowed the country to be struck. As the White House adviser Karl Rove would write, "We worked to numb ourselves to the fact of an attack on American soil that involved the death of thousands." Reshaping U.S. policy after 9/11 meant resolving the ambiguities and shattering the paralysis that had marked the first nine months of the administration. Before 9/11, the United States' primacy and security had been taken for granted; after 9/11, Washington had to make clear that it could protect the U.S. homeland, defend its allies, oversee an open world economy, and propagate its institutions.AMERICA'S QUEST FOR PRIMACYSome observers have compared the impact of 9/11 on U.S. policy to the impact on U.S. policy of North Korea's attack on South Korea in June 1950. Back then, the Truman administration had also been stunned. It had been pondering new initiatives, but the president was still waffling. He had approved the National Security Council report known as NSC-68 but was not quite ready to implement it. The dimensions of a coming U.S. military buildup were uncertain; the global nature of the Cold War still unclear; the ideological crusade still somewhat inchoate. But Dean Acheson, the secretary of state, and Paul Nitze, the director of policy planning at the State Department, knew they had to reconfirm the United States' preponderance of power, recently shattered by the Soviets' first nuclear test. They knew they had to increase the United States' military capabilities, regain the country's self-confidence, and avoid being self-deterred. They knew they had to take responsibility for the operation of global free trade and the reconstruction of the West German and Japanese economies (their successful resuscitation was still uncertain). They knew the United States' supremacy was being contested by a brutal and formidable rival with an ideology that had considerable appeal to impoverished peoples beginning to yearn for autonomy, equality, independence, and nationhood. In this context, the North Korean attack not only led to the Korean War but also unleashed a major expansion of U.S. global policy more generally.The long-term significance of 9/11 for U.S. foreign policy should not be overestimated.Whether or not one thinks that such analogies are appropriate, it is incontestable that Bush and his advisers saw themselves as being locked in a similar struggle. And they, too, sought to preserve and reassert the primacy of the United States while they struggled to thwart any follow-up attacks on U.S. citizens or U.S. territory. Like Acheson and Nitze, they were certain that they were protecting a way of life, that the configuration of power in the international arena and the mitigation of threats abroad were vital to the preservation of freedom at home.More than Acheson and Nitze, Bush's advisers had trouble weaving the elements of their policy into a coherent strategy that could address the challenges they considered most urgent. It seems clear now that many of their foreign policy initiatives, along with their tax cuts and unwillingness to call for domestic sacrifices, undercut the very goals they were designed to achieve.Thus, U.S. primacy was ultimately damaged by the failure to execute the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq effectively and by the anti-Americanism that these flawed enterprises helped magnify. U.S. officials might declare the universal appeal of freedom and proclaim that history has demonstrated the viability of only one form of political economy, but opinion polls throughout the Muslim world have shown that the United States' actions in Iraq and support of Israel were a toxic combination. As liberation turned into occupation and counterinsurgency, the United States and its power were thrown into disrepute.U.S. primacy was also damaged by the unexpected cost of the protracted wars, recently estimated by the Congressional Research Service to be $1.3 trillion dollars and mounting. It was eroded by the debts that accrued as a result of tax cuts and increased domestic expenditures. Defense spending climbed from $304 billion in 2001 to $616 billion in 2008, even as the U.S. budget went from a surplus of $128 billion to a deficit of $458 billion. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP rose from 32.5 percent in 2001 to 53.5 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, the U.S. debt held by foreign governments climbed steadily, from about 13 percent at the end of the Cold War to close to 30 percent at the end of the Bush years. U.S. financial strength and flexibility had been seriously eroded.Rather than preventing peer competitors from rising, the United States' interventions abroad and budgetary and economic woes at home put Washington at a growing disadvantage vis--vis its rivals, most notably Beijing. While U.S. forces were bogged down in Southwest Asia, China's growing military capabilities, especially its new class of submarines and its new cruise and ballistic missiles, endangered the United States' supremacy in East and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the U.S. trade deficit with China rose from $83 billion in 2001 to $273 billion in 2010, and total U.S. indebtedness to China rose from $78 billion in 2001 to over $1.1 trillion in 2011.Rather than preserving regional balances, U.S. actions upset the balance in the region that U.S. officials cared most about, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East more generally. The United States' credibility in the region withered, Iraq was largely eliminated as a counterbalance to Iran, Iran's ability to meddle beyond its borders increased, and the United States' ability to mediate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations declined.Rather than thwarting proliferation, U.S. interventions on behalf of regime change provided additional incentives for rogue nations to pursue WMD. Iranian and North Korean leaders seem to have calculated that, more than ever before, their countries' survival depended on possessing a WMD deterrent (a message that has probably been reinforced by the Obama administration's decision to intervene in Libya in 2011 following Libya's renunciation of its nuclear capability several years earlier).Rather than promoting free markets, U.S. economic woes spurred protectionist impulses at home and complicated trade negotiations abroad. Efforts to expedite the Doha Round of trade talks faltered, and bilateral trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea stalled.Rather than promoting liberty, the war on terror coexisted with democratic backsliding globally (at least until the recent Arab Spring). U.S. war fighting and counterterrorism nurtured Washington's unsavory relationships with some of the world's most illiberal regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. According to Freedom House's 2010 annual report on the state of global political rights and civil liberties, "2009 was the fourth straight year in which more countries saw declines in freedom than saw improvements, the longest continuous period of deterioration in the nearly forty year history of the report."And rather than thwarting terrorism and radical Islamism, U.S. actions encouraged them. During the war on terror, the number of terrorist incidents rose, and possibly so did the number of jihadists. The U.S. government's own National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 acknowledged that the country lived in a heightened threat environment. A 2008 report on counterterrorism from a respected nonpartisan think tank, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, concluded, "Since 2002-3, the overall US position in the GWOT [global war on terror] has slipped." Although the United States had captured and killed terrorist leaders and operatives, disrupted terrorist networks, seized assets, and built constructive partnerships with counterterrorist agencies abroad, it noted, the gains had been "offset by the metastasis of the al Qaeda organization into a global movement, the spread and intensification of Salafi-Jihadi ideology, the resurgence of Iranian regional influence, and the growth in the number and political influence of Islamic fundamentalist political parties throughout the world." It is possible that the recent killing of bin Laden will reverse these trends, but many leading experts are skeptical.Criticism is, of course, easy in hindsight. After 9/11, U.S. officials confronted agonizing challenges and choices. In an atmosphere of extreme fear and real danger, their record included important accomplishments and admirable initiatives. They kept pressure on al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and may well have prevented other attacks on U.S. soil and citizens. They pulled off a major nonproliferation success in getting Libya to abandon its nuclear program, formed a strong relationship with rising powers such as India, and kept relations with China and Russia from boiling over. They reformed and reinvigorated foreign aid, exerted global leadership in the fight against infectious diseases, tried to keep the Doha Round of trade talks moving forward, and raised the profile of democracy promotion and political reform in ways that may have resonated deeply and contributed to the current ferment across the Middle East.These successes were outweighed by the administration's failure to achieve many of its most important goals. But critics are wrong to say that the policies that failed were radically new or surprising. They were rooted in the past.9/11 IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVEPreemptive and preventive actions were not invented by Bush; his vice president, Dick Cheney; and Rumsfeld; they have a long history in the annals of U.S. foreign policy. A century earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt's "corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine was a policy of preventive intervention in the Americas, as were the subsequent U.S. military occupations of countries such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt justified his resort to anticipatory self-defense against German ships in the Atlantic prior to the United States' entry into World War II by saying, "When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him." Some 20 years on, President John F. Kennedy determined that he could not allow a Soviet deployment of offensive weapons about 90 miles from U.S. shores, and he unilaterally imposed a quarantine -- essentially a blockade and an act of belligerency -- around Cuba during the missile crisis. In Kennedy's view, this was a legitimate preventive step, notwithstanding the fact that it brought the country to the brink of nuclear war. Responding to the threat of terrorism in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton signed a national security directive declaring that "the United States shall pursue vigorously efforts to deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute ... individuals who perpetrate or plan to perpetrate such attacks." The Roosevelts, Kennedy, and Clinton, along with most of their presidential colleagues, would have agreed with the statement in Bush's 2002 National Security Strategy, which could have been referring to any impending threat, that "history will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action."Bush and his advisers, moreover, were hardly alone in seeking regime change abroad in the wake of 9/11. Two weeks after the president's "axis of evil" speech in January 2002, former Vice President Al Gore declared, "There really is something to be said for occasionally putting diplomacy aside and laying one's cards on the table. There is value in calling evil by its name." He continued, "Even if we give first priority to the destruction of terrorist networks, and even if we succeed, there are still governments that could bring great harm. And there is a clear case that one of those governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class to itself: Iraq. . . . A final reckoning with that government should be on the table." A few days later, then Senator Joe Biden interrupted Powell as he was testifying before Congress. "One way or another," Biden said, "Saddam has got to go, and it is likely to be required to have U.S. force to have him go, and the question is how to do it in my view, not if to do it." Two days later, Sandy Berger, who had been Clinton's national security adviser, insisted in his own testimony that although each part of the axis of evil was an unmistakable danger, Saddam was especially pernicious and ominous, saying that he "was, is, and continues to be a menace to his people, to the region, and to us." Berger continued: "He cannot be accommodated. Our goal should be regime change. The question is not whether, but how and when." And Clinton himself subsequently explained why he supported his successor's decision to invade Iraq: "There was a lot of stuff [WMD] unaccounted for. . . . You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks. I never really thought he'd [use them]. What I was far more worried about was that he he'd sell this stuff or give it away."Conventional wisdom says that Democratic officials might have acted differently after 9/11, and it seems likely that they would have worked more diligently to cooperate with allies in Europe. But the Bush administration's use of force to bring about regime change in countries perceived to be threatening in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks comported with what most Americans believed to be desirable at the time. The administration's military buildup, meanwhile, was neither especially bold nor unprecedented. Its quest to avoid peer competitors resembled the U.S. effort to preserve an atomic monopoly after World War II, achieve military preponderance in the wake of the Korean War, preserve military superiority during the Kennedy years, regain superiority during the Reagan years, and nurture unipolarity after the Soviet Union's collapse. Clinton's Joint Chiefs of Staff embraced the term "full-spectrum superiority" to describe the country's strategic intentions. It was during the Clinton years, not the Bush years, that the United States started spending more money on defense than virtually all other nations combined. Scholars and practitioners as varied as Andrew Bacevich, Eric Edelman, John Mearsheimer, and Paul Wolfowitz see more continuity than difference in the strategic goals and military practices of all the post-Cold War administrations.The similarities extend to rhetorical tropes and ideological aspirations as well. It has become fashionable in some circles to excoriate the ideological fervor of the Bush team. But the affirmation of democratic values was hardly new. It was integral to the Wilsonian and Achesonian visions of the world, if not that of Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon. One should recall Kennedy addressing the people of Berlin or launching the Alliance for Progress, President Lyndon Johnson explaining U.S. actions in Vietnam, President Jimmy Carter talking about human rights, and President Ronald Reagan extolling the U.S. role in the world. Their rhetorical tropes resemble Bush's, as do Obama's in his recent speeches. And like his predecessors (and his successor), Bush had little trouble deviating from this message when it suited his administration's strategic or material interests.Many argue that U.S. policy after 9/11 was distinguished by its unilateralism. But the instinct to act independently, and to lead the world while doing so, is consonant with the long history of U.S. diplomacy, dating back to President George Washington's Farewell Address and President Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural speech. During the Cold War, U.S. officials always reserved the right to act unilaterally, even while they nurtured alliances. Clinton's last National Security Strategy, and Obama's first, explicitly did the same. There is little doubt that Bush's advisers, inspired by fear and hubris as well as a sense of responsibility and pangs of guilt, had a greater propensity to act unilaterally than did their Democratic predecessors or successors. But at the same time, they also articulated a desire to strengthen alliances, a goal that was pursued to some good effect after 2005.Bush is linked even more closely to those who came before and after by his embrace of the open door policy and global free trade. His 2002 National Security Strategy, famous for jettisoning containment and deterrence and embracing anticipatory self-defense, also contained long sections dealing with promoting global economic growth, nurturing free markets, opening societies, and building the infrastructure of democracy. These U.S. policies have a long heritage, dating back to the "open door notes" of Secretary of State John Hay, President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and Franklin Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter, and they have been a staple of many more recent, if less memorable, statements by Clinton and Obama.GRAPPLING WITH TRAGEDYThe long-term significance of 9/11 for U.S. foreign policy, therefore, should not be overestimated. The attacks that day were a terrible tragedy, an unwarranted assault on innocent civilians, and a provocation of monumental proportions. But they did not change the world or transform the long-term trajectory of U.S. grand strategy. The United States' quest for primacy, its desire to lead the world, its preference for an open door and free markets, its concern with military supremacy, its readiness to act unilaterally when deemed necessary, its eclectic merger of interests and values, its sense of indispensability -- all these remained, and remain, unchanged.What the attacks did do was alter the United States' threat perception and highlight the global significance of nonstate actors and radical Islamism. They alerted the country to the fragility of its security and the anger, bitterness, and resentment toward the United States residing elsewhere, particularly in parts of the Islamic world. But if 9/11 highlighted vulnerabilities, its aftermath illustrated how the mobilization of U.S. power, unless disciplined, calibrated, and done in conjunction with allies, has the potential to undermine the global commons as well as to protect them.Rather than heaping blame or casting praise on the Bush administration, ten years after 9/11 it is time for Americans to reflect more deeply about their history and their values. Americans can affirm their core values yet recognize the hubris that inheres in them. They can identify the wanton brutality of others yet acknowledge that they themselves are the source of rage in many parts of the Arab world. Americans can agree that terrorism is a threat that must be addressed but realize that it is not an existential menace akin to the military and ideological challenges posed by German Nazism and Soviet communism. They can acknowledge that the practice of projecting solutions to their problems onto the outside world means that they seek to avoid difficult choices at home, such as paying higher taxes, accepting universal conscription, or implementing a realistic energy policy. Americans can recognize that there is evil in the world, as Obama reminded his Nobel audience in December 2009, and they can admit, as he did, that force has a vital role to play in the affairs of humankind. But they can also recognize that the exercise of power can grievously injure those whom they wish to help and can undercut the very goals they seek to achieve. Americans can acknowledge the continuities in their interests and values yet wrestle with the judgments and tradeoffs that are required to design a strategy that works in a post-Cold War era, where the threats are more varied, the enemies more elusive, and power more fungible.The bitterness that has poisoned American public discourse in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the wars they triggered should be turned into sorrowful reflection about how fear, guilt, hubris, and power can do so much harm in the quest to do good. This remains the tragedy of American diplomacy that William Appleman Williams, the prominent historian, instructed Americans to confront a half century ago.

Research q 2: measures and actions taken in response to 9/11Response to 9/11: The War on TerrorIn response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States initiated an international military campaign known as the War on Terror (or the War on Terrorism). Led by the United States and the United Kingdom with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) support, the War on Terror was waged initially against al-Qaeda and other militant organizations but soon expanded to include Saddam Hussein and Iraq.Finding al-Qaida and Osama bin LadenThe attacks, carried out by 19 members of a fundamentalist Islamist group called al-Qaeda (the base), killed a total of about 3,000 people.On September 17, President Bush formally identified al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as the mastermind behind the attacks. A wealthy member of a prominent Saudi Arabian family, bin-Laden had operated out of Afghanistan since the mid-1990s, under the protection of a group called the Taliban. TheTaliban(which means student) followed an extreme version of Islamic law, and had seized control in Afghanistan in 1998.In addition, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an advisor and financier of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was identified as a principal planner of the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed admitted his involvement in April 2002.Speaking to a joint session of Congress on September 20, Bush demanded the Taliban hand over bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders and dismantle terrorist training camps within Afghanistan. President Bush stated, Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.The phrase War on Terror was first used by U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bushand other high-ranking U.S. officials to denote the global military, political, legal and ideological struggle against organizations designated as terrorist and government regimes that providing them with support or posed a threat to the U.S. and its allies. The central aims of the War on Terror include: Defeat terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and destroy their organizations Identify, locate and destroy terrorists along with their organizations Deny sponsorship, support and sanctuary to terrorists Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit Defend U.S. citizens and interests at home and abroad Ensure an integrated incident management capabilityThe War on Terror in AfghanistanOn October 7, after Taliban leaders had rejected Bushs demands, U.S. and British aircraft unleashed a massive bombing attack on major Afghan cities. Afghan capital of Kabul fell by mid-November. By mid-December, air attacks coupled with ground forces that included troops from the United States, allied countries, and anti-Taliban Afghan militia toppled the Taliban regime. Osama bin Laden was believed to have escaped to Pakistan during the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.Operation Enduring Freedom was the official name used by the Bush administration for theWar in Afghanistan. The global operations were intended to seek out and destroy any al-Qaeda fighters or affiliates. Operations were also conducted in the Philippines, Horn of Africa and Trans-Sahara region of Africa.While out of power, however, the Taliban was not out of business. Taliban forces gradually began an insurgency that showed no signs of abating. The insurgents efforts were aided by an ineffectual and corruption-riddled Afghan government, and fueled by funds from control of Afghanistans vast opium production. The enemy also took advantage of safe havens in mountainous areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by scampering into Pakistan, where it was politically difficult for U.S. and allied troops to follow.The War on Terror in IraqIn March 2003, the Iraq War began with an air campaign immediately followed by aground invasionled by U.S. forces. The Bush administration contended the invasion had been authorized by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.Iraqs capital city of Baghdad fell in April 2003 and Iraqi President Saddam Husseins government quickly dissolved. On May 1, 2003, Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Aninsurgencyarose, however, against the U.S.-led coalition and the newly developing Iraqi military and government. The insurgency, fueled in part by external forces such asal-Qaeda-affiliated groupsand part by centuries-old enmity between Iraqi Sunni and Shiite Muslims, caused far more coalition casualtiesthan the invasionitself.Saddam Hussein wascapturedby U.S. forces in December 2003 and executed by Iraqis in 2006. In 2004, the insurgent forces grew stronger. The United States conducted attacks on insurgent strongholds in cities like Najaf and Fallujah.In January 2007, President Bush presented a new strategy for Operation Iraqi Freedom based upon new counter-insurgency theories and tactics, and violence and insurgent attacks decreased. The war entered a new phase in September 2010, with the official end of U.S. combat operations. However, 50,000 U.S. troops remain in an advisory role to provide support for Iraqi security forces.The War on Terror in the U.S.A month after the September 11 attacks, Bush pushed for a proposal called the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act or the USA PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act was approved 357-66 in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the vote was 98-1, with only Senator Russell Feingold, D-WI, opposed.The far-reaching temporary act (most of which was made permanent by Congress in 2006) greatly expanded the authority of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to conduct searches, look at medical and other personal records, such as what materials an individual took out from public libraries, and spy on those suspected of potential terrorist acts without court approval. It allowed foreigners to be held for up to seven days without charges or deportation proceedings.In January 2002, the U.S. established a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to hold inmates defined as "illegal enemy combatants. President Obama pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay facility and transfer the inmates either to prisons in the U.S. or to other countries. Congress, however, prohibited the use of fund to transfer inmates to U.S. prisons and placed conditions on transfers to foreign countries in the 2011 Defense Authorization bill. As of May 2011, Guantanamo Bay still holds 171 prisoners.In July 2002, Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to listen in on phone calls American citizens made to other countries and to monitor e-mails. The order wasnt made public until 2005 and Congress didnt sanction the actions until 2008.In November 2002, President Bush signed a bill creating the Department of Homeland Security, consolidating dozens of government agencies, from the Secret Service to the Coast Guard, into one super-agency.Cost of the War on TerrorNo generally accepted figure exists for the number of people killed or wounded so far in the War on Terror. Some calculations estimate the following loss in human life. Iraq: between 392,979 and 942,636 estimated Iraqi civilian and combatants, 655,000 with a confidence interval of 95% (second Lancet survey of mortality). Afghanistan: between 10,960 and 49,600 U.S. military killed: 5921 U.S. military wounded 42,673 U.S. civilians killed (includes 9/11 and after): 3000 + U.S. civilians wounded/injured: 6000 + Total American casualties: 54,800+A March 2011 Congressional Research Service report, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, analyzed the financial outlays for the conflict since its inception. The report concludes the War on Terror cost $1.283 trillion through fiscal year 2011 for such purposes as military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans health care.The total cost of the War on Terror may exceed $1.415 trillion in 2012 and may reach $1.8 trillion by 2021. The reports total does not include supplementary economic, food and military aid to Pakistan or assistance to several countries in Africa involved in the War on Terror.Criticism of the War on TerrorThe concept of a war against terror is highly controversial with many critics pointing to a host of concerns, including allegations that participating governments have exploited the war to pursue long-standing policy objectives, reduce civil liberties, and violate human rights. The chief criticisms include: The term war is not appropriate in this context since there is no identifiable enemy and it is unlikely international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means. The war is inefficient, counterproductive, consolidates opposition to the U.S., aids terrorist recruitment, and increases the likelihood of attacks against the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. permits a double standard in its dealings with key allies that are also known to support terrorist groups, such as Pakistan. Many believe the true purpose of the war is American control of Middle East oil and U.S. domination of the world. The war has been a huge overreaction and increased militarization and politicization of U.S. efforts is the wrong approach to terrorism.End of the War on Terror?Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Special Forces.Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan and is currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention campResearch q 3 hegemony pre 9/11Postcold War Policy - Preserving American global hegemonyAmerican foreign policy officials almost never use the word "hegemony" in their public discourse. WhenHenry Kissingerdid so at his first press conference after being named President Richard Nixon's special assistant for national security affairs in 1968, puzzled reporters scurried to their dictionaries for help. Presidents and their advisers prefer more positive terms such as "global leadership" or "indispensable nation" to describe America's role in the world, yet "hegemony," because it is less loaded, better captures the essence of recent U.S. strategy. The ancient Greeks understood "hegemony" to mean preponderant international influence or authority, and preserving such preponderance has been a fundamental goal of all postCold War administrations.At century's end the American economy had experienced the longest peacetime expansion in its history. Low inflation, sustained growth, and rising worker productivity had made it the engine of global prosperity and technological change. Americans owned more than half of the world's computers and received more than half of the world's royalties and licensing fees. The eight largest high-tech companies were headquartered in the United States. American pop culture was virtually ubiquitous, with Michael Jordan posters, McDonald's golden arches, and Hollywood movies its most familiar symbols.The United States retained the globe's most powerful and expensive military establishment with expenditures larger than all of the other nations combined. Its forward presence in Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf was secured by a host of garrisons, air bases, and aircraft carrier task forces. U.S. regional commanders often acted like Roman tribunes, not only leading American forces but also initiating direct diplomatic contacts with foreign governments. The technological gap between American weapons systems and those of other nations, already evident in the Gulf War of 1991, had become enormous by the 1999Kosovoair campaign against the Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic.At the same time, American global commitments expanded. U.S. ground troops landed in Somalia in 1992 to help end afamine(only to be withdrawn the next year as a result of casualties that were incurred after the mission had grown); returnedHaitito its ousted democratically elected president in 1994; and enteredBosniain 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 as "peacekeepers." American aircraft carriers protectedTaiwanfrom the People's Republic of China, patrolled the Persian Gulf, and sailed the Indian Ocean. Its warplanes routinely bombed Iraq for more than a decade, helped end the war in Bosnia in 1995, and broughtYugoslaviato its knees in 1999.Far from disappearing after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, at Washington's insistence, expanded into central and eastern Europe. In Asia, American planners anticipated maintaining troop levels at around 100,000 for at least twenty more years. And at the United Nations, the United States, under congressional pressure, prevented Boutros Boutros-Ghali from being reelected secretary-general, primarily because he had criticized the United States for failing to play a more active role in UN peacekeeping efforts in Somalia and Rwanda.Surely such power and influence constituted "global hegemony," and American leaders, as well as those of a surprisingly large number of foreign nations, wished to preserve it. But domestic divisions surfaced about whether it could best be accomplished unilaterally or by working closely with allies and international organizations. This debate began in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War and by the millennium remained unresolved. President George H. W. Bush, envisioned America's role as that of benevolent hegemon, protecting the growing "zone of democratic peace" against regional outlaws, terrorists, nuclear proliferators, and other threats to world order. It would do so in concert with others, if possible, as in the Gulf War, or unilaterally, if necessary.Work soon began in the Department of Defense to make this concept operational, and in March 1992 the results were leaked to the press. The main Pentagon planning group outlined a strategy of "global leadership" that presumed America's continuing international preeminence and argued that the United States should actively prevent the emergence of states that could challenge it. By using existing security arrangements to ensure the safety of its allies, Washington would view as potentially hostile any state with sufficient human and technological resources to dominate Europe, East Asia, or the Middle East. This strategy acknowledged that within a decade Germany or Russia might threaten Europe; Japan, Russia, and eventually China might do likewise in East Asia; and that the domination of either region would consequently imperil the Middle East. But this group suggested that the United States could create incentives for Germany and Japan to refrain from challenging American preeminence. No mention was made of the United Nations or any other international organization, and because the strategy smacked of unilateralism, a number of allies, led by France, condemned it. And, although its untimely release embarrassed the George H. W. Bush administration, these recommendations nevertheless reflected the thinking of an important segment of the foreign policy community.Upon entering office in 1993, President Bill Clinton adoptedinitially, at last"muscular" or "assertive" mulilateralism to preserve America's position in the postCold War world, while he concentrated on reviving the domestic economy. But the poor performance of the United Nations in Somalia and the European Union's failure to halt the war in Bosnia gradually persuaded the administration that American leadership was, indeed, "indispensable." Nevertheless, many Republicans in Congress, fresh from their historic 1994 triumph at the polls, remained deeply suspicious of international organizations because they allegedly threatened American sovereignty and freedom of action. During the 1996 presidential campaign, Robert Dole, the Republican nominee, promised that when he was in the White House, "no American fighting men and women will take any orders from Field Marshal Boutros Boutrous-Ghali." Republican unilateralists opposed aiding Mexico during its peso crisis in 1994 and 1995, repeatedly criticized the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, refused to pay American dues owed to the United Nations, and tried to abolish the Agency for International Development (AID). Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for AID's replacement with a new international development foundation with a mandate "to deliver block grants to support the work of private relief agencies and faith-based institutions." The Senate defeated theComprehensive Test Ban Treatyin 2000 with many members convinced that it represented "unilateral disarmament," and a majority in Congress opposed U.S. membership in the new International Criminal Court, fearing that U.S. military personnel stationed overseas could be hauled before it.Although the Clinton administration attempted to discredit these critics by calling them isolationists, they were, in fact, determined to preserve American global hegemony by protecting it against the encroachments of international organizations. In effect, Republican unilateralists echoed many of the arguments made by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge against U.S. membership in the League of Nations after World War I.While certain nations clearly resented America's preeminent position in the postCold War world, none was able to mobilize an international coalition against the United States. China grumbled about American "hegemonism," France complained about the U.S. exertion of "hyper-power," Russia deeply resented the expansion of NATO, and states like Iraq and Iran tested Washington's patience. Yet the stability and protection afforded by America's global predominance were welcomed, or at least tolerated, by the vast majority of foreign nations. East European states clamored for admission to NATO, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization participated in a U.S.-led "peace process," and countries from South America to Africa invited the United States to serve as an honest broker to help settle regional disputes.Global preeminence, of course, has never been permanent. Previoushegemonswere eventually humbled by overextension, a weakening domestic social fabric, or by rising competitor states. No doubt the "American century" would not endure forever, but in the absence of some unanticipated catastrophe like a nuclear war or a massive biological attack, it remained difficult to imagine an imminent end to American primacy.

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Research q no 3: hegemony post 9/11The end of US hegemony: Legacy of 9/11By Lionel BarberAuthor alertsLoading data...in the morning of September 11, 2001, Americas prospects appeared as bright as the clear blue sky over Lower Manhattan. The price of Brent crude oil was $28 a barrel, the Federal government was running a budget surplus, the US economy was turning (albeit imperceptibly) after the dotcom crash. The most powerful nation on earth was at peace.Ten years on, the oil price hovers around $115 a barrel, the US is projected to run a budget deficit for 2011 of $1,580bn, the largest in its history; the economy remains deeply troubled after the financial crash of 2008; and Americas military and intelligence services remain at war, battling insurgency and radical Islamic terrorism, from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Niger and Yemen.Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has described the national debt as the greatest threat to US national security. Standard & Poors recent downgrade of Americas credit rating appears to confirm the superpowers steady slippage. And while there is no linear narrative from the September 2001 attacks to Americas present economic plight, the inflation-adjusted cost of the ensuing global war on terror at more than $2,000bn amounts to twice the cost of the Vietnam war.President George W. Bushs response to the assault on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was to launch two wars of choice against Afghanistan and Iraq, a pugnacious unilateralism at the expense of alliances and international law, and a near evangelical promotion of liberal democracy in the Middle East. His administrations hard-edged policies fractured alliances in Europe and triggered a sharp fall in Americas standing abroad. On the positive side of the ledger, America has so far escaped another terrorist attack on its own soil. Others have not been so fortunate. The bombings in Bali (2002), Madrid (2004), and London (2005) did not match the scale of September 11, but they claimed several hundred victims. Al-Qaeda is down but not entirely out. Dozens of computer disks recovered from Osama bin Ladens hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, suggest the al-Qaeda leader, killed last May during a daring raid by US Navy Seals, was planning another spectacular outrage, perhaps to coincide with the September 11 anniversary this weekend.Moreover, this years Arab awakening has dispelled the notion that the Middle East with the exception of Israel is congenitally incapable of embracing democracy, One by one, the regions autocrats, from Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, have been toppled by protesters demanding dignity, freedom and jobs. True, the fall of Muammer Gaddafi in Libya was precipitated by armed rebellions assisted by Nato warplanes; but President Bashar al-Assad of Syria may be the next leader to feel the hot breath of the Arab street. The question is whether the much-maligned Mr Bush was correct in arguing that the autocratic status quo in the Middle East created an incubator for radical Islamic terrorism and consequently a clear and present danger to the US. If the answer is yes, then his administrations failings were due less to a flawed diagnosis and more to a matter of execution.A second related question is whether the administrations military response to September 11 amounted to a costly and disproportionate diversion of attention and resources at a time when the world was being reshaped by the rise of powerful new actors, notably China?. . . In the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers, a geopolitical re-alignment comparable to those of 1815, 1945 or 1989 appeared to take shape. The US mustered a coalition against terrorism that included rivals such as Russia and China, as well as one-time pariahs such as Cuba, Iran and Sudan.The military response was equally effective. Having identified the perpetrators, the US staged a brilliant improvised campaign to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. US special forces combined with warlords and overwhelming air-power to break the Kabul regime within weeks. Although the leaders, notably Mullah Omar and his proxy Bin-Laden, slipped away, the al-Qaeda network was relentlessly targeted and disrupted. Within a year, the US had lost the moral high ground. Mr Bushs error was to make clear that regime change in Iraq was only one step for dealing with what he described as an axis of evil including Iran, North Korea and potentially other adversaries suspected of harbouring or sponsoring terrorists. Overnight, the US was cast as a rogue nation.Concerns rose with the publication of a revised national security doctrine in 2002, which ditched cold war concepts of containment and deterrence. In their place came a forward-leaning strategy of pre-emptive military action, regime change, and a new kind of warfare that justified torture and denied the rights of the Geneva Convention to suspected terrorists. Thus the Iraq war was fought without the support of traditional allies such as Canada, France and Germany; without the backing of the UN Security Council; and without conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction posing an immediate threat to the US. As for allies, Britains prime minister Tony Blair provided loyal political cover, though Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, declared witheringly that UK forces were redundant in military terms.Nato, having for the first time invoked article five to commit all members to collective defence, was similarly sidelined. Washingtons motto was the mission determines the coalition. But selective alliances work both ways. By the end of the decade, European allies were using caveats to opt out of military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Hence outgoing US defence secretary Robert Gates warning this year that Nato was fast becoming irrelevant.Europe, too, emerged much diminished and not just during the Libyan conflict where Germany opted out and Britain and France ran short of munitions within weeks. At the beginning of the new century, flush with the success of launching a new monetary union, Europes leaders agreed plans to make the European Union the most competitive economic zone in the world. In retrospect, the much-vaunted Lisbon agenda marked the summit of ambitions coinciding with the bursting of the dotcom bubble.Ten years on, the original design of European monetary union has shown itself to be fundamentally flawed. The enforcement mechanisms for budgetary discipline were ignored by big and smaller members alike, including Germany; peripheral economies in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, which soared on the back of low interest rates, have been exposed as uncompetitive. Contagion in the bond markets now threatens to spread to Italy, a core eurozone member

By Mr Bushs second term, abrasive rhetoric gave way to a more tempered approach. As an occupation force in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US became sucked into the nation-building that Mr Rumsfeld had long derided. In a similar confusion, President Barack Obama and David Cameron, UK prime minister, declared either one or both of these missions to be militarily vital and then acted as if they were discretionary by setting a (political) timetable for withdrawal.The accountants will tot up the collective bill for the Afghan and Iraq ventures at close to $2,000bn in inflation-adjusted terms; but Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank and a former deputy US secretary of state, argues that a country as rich as the US can well afford the cost. In 1948, says Mr Zoellick, the average gross national product per head in the US was one quarter of where it stands today. Yet Americans readily supported President Trumans doctrine to prop up democracies in Europe and counter communism around the world to the tune of billions of dollars.Whether the seeds of democratic transformation will take root in Iraq is more debatable. The much-vaunted US military surge rescued the country from chaos and possible break-up, but relations between Iraqs ethnic groups Kurds, Sunnis and the majority Shia remain precarious. Arguably, the toppling of Saddam Hussein has allowed Iran to become the dominant regional power, exerting influence through the Shia government in Baghdad. Meanwhile, Tehrans nuclear ambitions remain unchecked.Nor did 9/11 boost efforts to tackle the other serious and unresolved threat to regional stability: the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Both Mr Bush and Mr Obama have failed to break the deadlock over the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and the status of Jerusalem. Successive Israeli prime ministers from Ariel Sharon to Benjamin Netanyahu have turned the war on terror to their own advantage, arguing that concessions jeopardise Israels security and entities such as Hamas which easily won elections in Gaza in 2005 are terrorists masquerading as legitimate representatives of the Palestinians. Despite the focus on fighting terrorism, the US was still alert to broader geopolitical trends. The most important breakthrough took place between the US and India with the signing in 2008 of the123 deal on civil nuclear co-operation. The new strategic partnership between Washington and New Delhi not only offers a counterweight to the rise of China, but also to nuclear-armed Pakistan, Americas long-time but increasingly unmanageable ally in South Asia. By contrast, Sino-US relations amount to not much more than an uneasy accommodation. Beijing sees Washington (at best) as neither friend nor enemy, while the US has belatedly woken up to Chinas challenge to its dominance in the Pacific. Beijing has grudgingly applied pressure to its brooding nuclear neighbour in North Korea, but nationalist fervour means the leadership remains neuralgic over Taiwan and acutely sensitive to territorial disputes with Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.. . . In the final resort, the most significant geopolitical development of the past 10 years took place not on the battlefield but in the financial system. The global banking crisis stemmed from flawed regulation and perverse incentives for banks to sell mortgages to poor Americans with no ability to repay, as well as gigantic leverage in the financial system. These distortions were created, in part, by global imbalances driven by Americans living on cheap credit and Chinese exporters and savers contributing to a vast current account surplus.Until the Great Crash of 2008, this financial merry-go-round spun regardless. Thanks to cheap labour costs, China exported deflation to the rest of the world. China financed the US current account deficit by recycling its own surplus into US Treasury bonds. Now, three years into the financial crisis, the world economy has been turned upside down. The US is diminished, Europe sidelined, and Asia, for now, in the ascendant.Consider the broader historical trend. Developing Asias share of the global economy in purchasing power parity terms has risen steadily from 8 per cent in 1980 to 24 per cent last year. Taken as a whole, Asian stock markets now account for 31 per cent of global market capitalisation, ahead of Europe at 25 per cent and within a whisker of the US at 32 per cent. Last year, China overtook Germany to become the worlds largest exporter. Chinese banks now rank among the biggest in the world by market capitalisation.Import numbers are equally revealing: the developing world is becoming a driver of the global economy. From the consumption of cement to eggs, China leads the world; it has also just overtaken US to become the worlds largest market for cars.Chinas voracious appetite for commodities is creating new trade routes, especially with emerging powerhouses such as Brazil. Last year, China surpassed the US as Brazils biggest trading partner. Latin America, a region once best known for instability, has emerged through the crisis virtually unscathed. Poverty is falling, the middle classes are expanding and asset markets are bubbling.Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bushs national security adviser and secretary of state, once described multi-polarity as a theory of rivalry, a necessary evil. In economic terms, multi-polarity spells a new order in which interdependence is the norm and the US, while still overwhelmingly powerful, no longer occupies the role of hegemon.As for the legacy of 9/11, Gerard Lyons, chief economist of Standard Chartered Bank, says the three most important words in the past decade were not war on terror but made in China. On present trends, he adds, the three most important words of this decade will be owned by China.

Research question no 4POST 9/11 US POLICY TOWARDS TERRORISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FORPAKISTANSEP 16Posted byMuhammad Alamgir (Analyst of International Relations)Introduction: The events of 9/11 represented a critical threshold in Pakistans foreign policy. General Musharraf was among the first foreign leaders to have received a clarion call from Washington. You are either with us or against us was the massage[1]. With its own post independence political history replete with endemic crises and challenges that perhaps no other country in the world had ever experience, Pakistan stood there aghast already burdened with a legacy of multiple challenges, both domestic and external, when the tragedy of 9/11 presented it with new ominous realities, and also an opportunity to think anew and act anew[2]. Pakistan faced the worst dilemma of its life. It did not know which way to go and which way not to. Terrorism became worlds foremost and unifocal concern transcending all other global challenges.US-Pakistan relations in historic perspective:Over the last six decades relations between Pakistan and US have seen many ups and downs, punctuated by intense engagement by and strong distinct estrangement. Each country has tried to influence other with its own peculiar needs. Pakistan once viewed, as the most allied ally when suited to US interest in 1950s, became the most sectioned ally of the US in 90s. The intensity of relations varied from one extreme to that of completely ignoring the other as in 1971, to that of urgent action as was seen immediately after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in December 1979 or during the war on terrorism after 9/11[3]. A new era of US-Pakistan relations started after the event of 9/11. Pakistan took u-turn towards Afghanistan[4]Anti Americanism in the Muslim world:Since September 2001 till today, that is, just within nine years the US has lost much of its good will and probably all of its moral foundations essentially because of its foreign policy, its imperialistic attitude of not listening to its allies and its outright disdain for international law, erosion of its moral ground and imposition of its own culture and values upon others. Botched diplomacy, imperialistic policies and brutal expression of its power have left legacy of resentment, fear and anxiety especially in the Muslim World[5].Many Muslims also stressed that Israels political and territorial strength has not exactly been domestically resourced. It has developed rather as a rentier state, depending heavily on outside, specifically American, assistance. From 1949 to 2002 US grants to Israel totaled over $ 87 billion and from 1991 the annual amount registered a dramatic rise, reaching a little more than $4 billion in the fiscal year of 2000. Further Muslims hold that the US has persistently overlooked that its sides with the state that has been progressively taken over by Jewish extremists[6].From 1945 to 2003, the US attempted to overthrow than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many million more to a life of agony and despair[7]. America treats itself above all laws and conventions. Its shameless invasion of Iraq, the merciless massacre of its innocent civilians and horrific torture of suspects swelled the ranks of American-haters and created many a suicide bombers[8].When the US indulges in military adventures abroad, it is not free of reaction at home. People within the US have been influenced by an increasing appreciation of what their country represents to the outside world[9].Post 9/11 challenges faced by Pakistan:Pakistan faced worst dilemma of life. It seemed as Pakistani president and officials have become the sole spokesmen for the US in threatening the Taliban and want to convey that our cooperation in the US lead effort is unconditional and we would not even let our national interest and integrity come in way of this cooperation. In Musharraf own words, 9/11 came as a thunderbolt presenting acute challenges as well as opportunities[10].The important challenges faced by Pakistan in changed world scenario after 9/11 events are Pakistan nuclear program, Kashmir issue, anti terrorism movement, and the economy of Pakistan, indo-US strategic and civil cooperation agreements, a ten years defense pact, a nuclear agreement and agreement on civil nuclear cooperation[11]. The situation in Pakistan has assumed many alarming proportions as the suicide bombers that once targeted the American soldiers and Western installations in Afghanistan has turned their guns towards Pakistan[12].Pakistani forces are fighting against terrorists and insurgents on its own soil. Drone attacks on our people by US led forces have become daily routine. US special operations forces seemed in FATA to provoke Pakistan army to launch full scale attack in North Waziristan[13].The latest act of terrorism has ensured that Pakistani living America will again be singled out in their workplace, recreational centers, school, colleges, restaurants, trains, buses, and even on the streets[14]. Pak army are fighting against terrorists and all these thorns will be gradually weeded out from our garden, our Pakistan[15].Conclusion:A proxy war is being fought on our soil. PAKISTAN IS THE ONLY Muslim country with an ongoing military operation against its own people. We have brought the anti-Taliban war into Pakistan which puts our armed forces on the wrong side of the people. Our sovereignty is being violated with impunity. Our freedom of action in our own interest is being questioned and undermined. We are accepting the responsibility for crimes we have not committed. Our problems are further implicated by the complex regional configuration with American sitting in Afghanistan, new Indo-US nexus and Indian increasing influence in Afghanistan. Our domestic failures have seriously constricted our foreign policy options. Our problems are not external but domestic. We need domestic consolidation, politically, economically and socially