ABSTRACT
In 2005, at an international academic conference, two of the authors of this chapter were given a first-hand experience of the antipathy that the Bush administration generated. A senior academic fulminated at length about the legitimacy of the George W. Bush presidency, regularly declaiming that 'the man does not deserve to be president' and, in a revealing cri de coeur, lambasting the manner in which he was elevated to the White House as a 'judicial putsch'. One area where a more mixed picture is evident – contrary to unidimensional critiques of the Bush approach – relates to the process of consultation and cooperation that makes up much of the day-to-day diplomatic exchanges of international politics. History may reflect that, due to a combination of poor timing and political choices made, the Bush administration managed to inflict a series of self-imposed wounds on its efforts to constrain the so-called 'rogue states' of international politics, particularly Iran and North Korea.
