IV. Regime Security Over National Security: How Bush’s Self-Preservation Project Masqueraded as National Defense
- john raymond
- Jul 3
- 2 min read
After 9/11, the United States had an opportunity to rise above fear and respond with clarity, strength, and wisdom. Instead, what we got was regime security masquerading as national security.
The Bush administration, confronted with a legitimacy crisis and a devastating attack on American soil, pivoted not toward principled governance but toward a campaign of self-preservation.
This is the first great lesson in modern asymmetric war: Regime Security Is the Prime Directive. That is Pillar One.
George W. Bush, elected without a popular mandate, entered office already perceived as illegitimate by many. The September 11 attacks presented not just a challenge to the nation, but an existential threat to the Bush presidency itself.
Would he be seen as weak? As unprepared? As responsible? These questions haunted the White House. Their answer: seize control of the narrative, appear strong, and punish anyone who deviated from the script.
So they invaded Iraq. Not because Iraq attacked us. Not because Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat. But because Iraq was visible, bombable, and symbolically useful. It gave the president a stage on which to perform strength.
This was not national security. This was optics.
Regime security also explains the expansion of the surveillance state. Mass warrantless wiretapping wasn't about catching terrorists; it was about consolidating executive power and silencing critics. The Patriot Act wasn’t about safety; it was about sweeping authority.
And when insiders like Joseph Wilson told the truth—that Iraq had no yellowcake uranium, that the war rationale was fraudulent—the regime struck back. The Plame affair revealed that truth-tellers would be targeted, not protected. That loyalty would be rewarded, not honesty. That the state would go to war against its own citizens if their words undermined the regime's hold on power.
We must see this clearly: Bush's war on Iraq was an asymmetric strike against the American mind. It trained us to think in simple binaries: with us or against us. It replaced discernment with fear. It made loyalty a litmus test for patriotism. It taught the public to associate military action with safety, even when such action made us less safe.
And this shift—this reprogramming of the American psyche—did not go unnoticed. Russia was watching. Putin was learning.
Next Section: V. Russia Saw What We Refused to Learn
Bush trained a generation to equate power with performance, optics with truth, and security with control. Putin took notes. And then he launched his own asymmetric campaign—not against Iraq, but against the very machinery of American democracy.
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