One of the main trends in American foreign policy over the past century is the tendency to drastically alternate between two extremes: the ambitious posture – reflecting unshakeable faith in the ability to break boundaries and to reshape the international arena in the spirit of American principles, visions and traditions – and the minimalist posture, which is skeptical with regard to the declared purpose and position of the United States.
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The latter approach is based on seclusion and convergence in the four corners of the American continent, without pretensions of bequeathing its cultural ethos to the rest of the world. Historically, the collapse of President Woodrow Wilson's vision, which led him to enter World War I, directly paved the way for the consolidation of the opposite paradigm, the "splendid isolation" doctrine, which was adhered to by the Republican presidents Coolidge, Harding, and Hoover.
The same applies to the events of September 11th, 2001, which led America to adopt an aggressive and uncompromising worldview that was firm in its belief that there could be no compromise with radical and tyrannical regimes, and that they needed to be removed as a prerequisite for establishing Wilson's democratic utopia. Only at a later stage did this confrontational approach clear the way for the neo-isolationist worldview, whose goal was to avoid conflict and crisis as much as possible.
So deep was the trauma that its echoes, implications, and consequences – both direct and indirect – are yet to fade into oblivion, both in the foreign and domestic spheres.
This acute feeling of vulnerability, which suddenly enveloped the calm and complacent American experience, changed deep-rooted ways of life beyond recognition, transforming the nation into a defensive democracy.
The campaign against the axis of evil
Domestically, this fear found its most complete expression in wide-ranging legislation (with the Patriot Act at its heart), giving George W. Bush's government far-reaching authority, allowing it to penetrate the private sphere of American citizens, in its attempt to track other terrorists.
Externally, the terror attacks were the immediate catalyst for starting the campaign against the Afghan Axis of Evil and Al-Qaida. At the same time, however, their shockwaves created deep tectonic shifts, nurturing a new crusade that was designed, in the spirit of Wilson's old doctrine, to bring down tyrannical and aggressive regimes, and to replace them in the Middle East with the gospel of Western democracy, even if this had to be done at the point of a bayonet.
The main focus of realizing this new and ambitious set of priorities was Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This is how Bush launched its war in March 2003 in the deserts of the land of the Euphrates and the Tigris, as a trial balloon to test the validity of the new strategy.
However, it quickly became clear that the results of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were disastrous, and this is despite the fact that the Taliban regime was (seemingly) overthrown already in December 2001, with Saddam Hussein's regime also falling quickly. Because, after two decades of military involvement in tempestuous societies, full of ethnic and religious rivalries, it is today clear to the Biden government that Afghanistan and Iraq became democracies only in the consciousness of well-intentioned American statesmen, who were light years away from understanding the true and chaotic nature of the region.
The disrupted regional order
It's not just that the regional order was disrupted without repair following American involvement, allowing Russia and Iran to fish in the murky waters in Baghdad (and for the Taliban to slowly take center stage in Afghanistan), but the dissipation of dreams into reality led the bloodied Americans into the era of neo-isolationism. This era, as in its near and distant past, reflected its longing to minimize damage and to disengage from areas of entanglement, war, and other crises (like in Syria).
The humiliating withdrawal of Biden the internationalist from the Afghani valley of tears, at the end of last month, constituted the forlorn peak of this process of convergence.
That's how the pendulum swung again in the direction of isolationism, with the place of the American eagle in the region now taken by Iran and of course Russia (mainly in Syria). The events of 9/11, which sharpened and heightened the fear and hostility of the other led to a series of strong legislative measures in Congress against immigrants and refugees from the Middle East and Mexico (especially during the Trump presidency).
Paradoxically, the American response to the mega-terror attacks, which was designed to establish a military and cultural "Pax Americana," led to the opposite result. This, while the superpower turned quickly from its dreams, and found itself on a path leading to isolationism and withdrawal.
Twenty years after the terror attacks, the proud American eagle finds itself in a clear position of weakness, with its feathers plucked and its prestige in tatters. With ironic cruelty, the terrorists have almost achieved their aim by dealing a near-fatal blow to American global hegemony and leadership.
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