But despite his warning, the Admiral knew that US military intervention was imminent, because it involved presidential prestige. To be a great president, he told Powell, the presidents must have their wars. One has to find a war even if there isn't one. President Bush is credited with both.

Six years into his presidency it is difficult to think of a single, substantial foreign policy initiative that the US President George Bush pursued but that did not involve war or its threat. This is not without a reason. It is one area in which America indisputably reigns supreme, accounting alone for 40% of the global military expenditure and spending; almost seven times the amount spent by its nearest rival, China.

Yet, greatness eludes George Bush. For if the last six years have proved anything it is the limits of military might as the central plank of foreign policy. Indeed, shorn of any meaningful diplomacy or rational approach even to military problems, Bush has clearly failed both on making America any safer and securing its global hegemony. In displaying his hubris and machismo in a brash, brutal, and ruthless manner, Bush could have asserted power, but certainly lost authority and influence both at home and abroad.

With his approval ratings dwindling to a Nixonian low and the midterm elections approaching, many of his fellow Republicans regard him to be a liability. Stumbling across the political landscape and rallying support for a lost case, he resembles more one of those mediocrities who have no enemies but are thoroughly disliked by their friends. The recent release of the National Security strategy did not belie that perception of him, but confirmed it.

Although the strategy insisted on diplomacy remaining America's "strong preference," it went on to re-affirm the US commitment to the virtue of pre-emptive strikes. "It necessary under long-standing principles of self defence that we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur," it went on to assert. Iran received "special mention" with a warning that talks must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided.

In practice, such paranoia translates into a perverse version of carrot and stick diplomacy. It means that you offer your adversary a carrot and then threaten to whack him with the stick while he is eating it.

That America's standing in global politics has plummeted with such an approach is without question. Of the ten countries polled in 2004 and again in 2005 by the Pew research group, the US has fallen in public estimation in eight of them. In only three -- Britain, Canada, and Russia -- did a majority still look upon the US charitably.

The reasons are not hard to find. Only weeks back the country that aspires to lead the free world stood alongside only Israel, Palau and the Marshal Islands in rejecting the creation of a new UN council to protect human rights. Only the US and Somalia (which has no recognized government) have failed to ratify the UN convention on the rights of children.

For long, the US clung to the notion that military strength would always have the last say and none of these syndromes mattered. It could well strut the world stage chanting: "no one likes us, we don't care." Indeed, in the wake of 9/11, it wore its unpopularity as a badge of honour.

But as events in Iraq have soured, the ability of the Bush administration to deliver on these threats has diminished considerably. With its military over-stretched and its diplomatic resources exhausted it has apparently been forced back to a position of relative weakness because nobody trust it or particularly fears it. If anything, both Iran and North Korea have lately been emboldened by the US failures in the Gulf.

In the meantime, the elections are producing the wrong results. Much to US distress, Hamas are in power in Palestine. Rene Preval, a protege of Aristide, whom the US helped remove in a coup two years back won the presidency in Haiti. Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi, the favourite of Pentagon whom the US wanted to impose on the Iraqis at the outset of war could not win a single seat. The voters in Latin America have chosen leaders who campaigned against the neo-liberal economic strictures imposed by Washington.

Now the question is whether the US is ready to accept the democratic choices made by the developing world. It is no more the question whether developing world is ready for democracy.

The principal area where the US demonstrated its military supremacy and its diplomatic weakness is Iraq. This misadventure has not only alienated most of the world from the Bush administration, but increasingly alienated the two constituencies it does need to win over: the Iraqis and Americans.

One of the key demands of the United Iraqi Alliance, the broad based Shia coalition that won the election in December, was the removal of the American military. And simultaneously, the support for the war in the US is haemorrhaging. Sixty per cent of the Americans believe that it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq and disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war. More than half of the US population want to see the troops withdrawn within a year.

Bush's looming problems may in no small part be due to the fact that in invading Iraq. Bush fulfilled only half of Crowe's criteria for a great presidency.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.