ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration shifted from an often-restrained posture to an unrestrained fast-thinking principled crusade. This shift in turn spurred more specific policy adjustments, as the emergence of a doctrine of preemptive war justified the invasion of Iraq. However, while the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq led Bush to briefly "double down" on crusading in his second inaugural call for a "freedom agenda", a combination of personnel shifts, in the emergence of Condoleezza Rice to Secretary of State. The deterioration of conditions in Iraq following the February 2006 destruction of the al-Askari mosque eventually spurred a pragmatic adjustment. With the shift to the Barack Obama administration, Obama's own aversion to principled excess spurred a more pragmatic approach toward China, Russia, and the Middle East in Obama's Cairo address, which shrank away from democracy promotion.
