How will history view the Bush/Blair legacy?

The Bush/Blair era of interventionist policy is coming to a close as both play out their remaining days in office.

Together they have passionately argued that state sponsored terrorism posed a serious threat to the 'freedom' and 'way of life' that was enjoyed by the world's democracies.

However, many have argued that far from eliminating terrorism their foreign policies have failed at every level and are directly responsible for creating a new threat from home grown extremists, or at the very least, discourse between communities that previously lived in harmony.

As both governments continue with their fight against an unseen enemy, many have argued that the 'freedom' and 'way of life' that needs protecting is being destroyed by the very 'need' to fight terrorism.

Critics of Bush and Blair say that the previous administrations policy of containment proved far more effective and that home-grown threats are the direct results of their pre-emptive doctrine.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently stated that "The diplomacy appropriate to denuclearisation is comparable to the containment policy that helped win the Cold War: no pre-emptive challenge to the external security of the adversary, but firm resistance to attempts to project its power abroad and reliance on domestic forces to bring about internal change."

Do you think that the 'interventionist' approach was and still remains correct, or do you think it was always seriously flawed?

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