The early years of the George W. Bush administration were marked by a strong sense of purpose, dedication to the "Bush Doctrine" for democratic change in the Middle East, and the soaring rhetoric of a president who understood that American leadership anchored global stability. In the wake of 9/11, Islamist jihadis, friends, allies, and adversaries alike were all put on notice: the United States was not ready for dhimmitude, not by a long shot.

"No Surrender" was more than a book title. The most dangerous regimes on earth would not be permitted to acquire the world's most dangerous weapons -- not on President Bush's watch. The State of Israel's identity as a Jewish state and outpost of democracy in the Middle East had a powerful defender. Freedom was on the march for oppressed Iranians, restless Egyptians, brutalized Iraqis, and all the peoples of the Arab and Muslim world.

Recently, however, the ability and willingness of the U.S. to lead the struggle for liberal democracy, rule of law, and values of Western civilization seem to be slipping badly. The resulting sense of uncertainty is leading to a dangerous instability in world affairs that invites challenge from opportunistic rogues, confusion from friends and allies, and appeasement and retreat from the weak. Only a reassertion of firm American leadership can end this dangerous interlude; the alternative is a continued slide into chaos that will only further erode the U.S.'s ability to defend, let alone pursue, national and international security objectives.

Without a doubt, the most serious challenge facing the U.S. today is Iran's geostrategic and ideological expansionism. While the 2006-7 period heralded increasing cohesion among U.S., European, and other world powers on the issue of checking Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions to the point that a military strike against its nuclear facilities looked likely, once the U.S. Intelligence Community issued its deeply flawed and blatantly politicized Key Judgments of the Iran National Intelligence Estimate in early December 2007, any such unity evaporated.

In rapid succession, Iran issued a contemptuous refusal to abide by previous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding it halt nuclear enrichment. Installation of additional thousands of gas centrifuges at Natanz proceeded apace, and Russia moved swiftly to provide long-promised enriched uranium fuel for Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor. Iran thus achieved both the preservation and advancement of its nuclear enrichment program and the Russian nuclear fuel with absolutely zero concessions or compliance with international obligations.

Iran's genocidal threats against Israel proliferated, even as Hamas launched a hail of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel and Syria helped Hezbollah amass huge shipments of Iranian armaments under the comatose noses of UNIFIL, the U.N. force posted to Lebanon for the express purpose of preventing such weaponization. U.S. boosterism for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas never flagged, even as his Fatah party's terrorist militia, the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, continued to receive Iranian funding and weapons, making a mockery of administration peace efforts.

In Iraq, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security support to terror cells surged again. According to General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, attacks against American troops by Iranian-supplied Explosively Formed Projectiles accelerated markedly in early January. If London's Sunday Times is right, the IRGC apparently has little to worry about: according to a Jan. 18 Times report, Major-General Ali Jafari, the head of Iran's IRGC, was welcomed into Baghdad's "Green Zone" in late December for talks with U.S. officials about the future of Iraqi security. So much for the significance of the IRGC's designation as a foreign terrorist organization by the Bush administration last year.

Three times in recent weeks, IRGC naval forces brazenly sent fast attack patrol boats against U.S. naval ships in the Persian Gulf, including the much-publicized Jan. 5 Strait of Hormuz confrontation in which five IRGC boats took on American ships for close to half an hour with no response whatsoever from the U.S. side other than some evasive maneuvers.

Desperately misplaced efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to demonstrate U.S. sympathy for Palestinian terrorists by comparing them to the segregated southern blacks of her youth ensured that any incipient impulse toward settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict evaporated rapidly after the showcase Annapolis conference of late November. Israeli diplomats, forced at Arab request by U.S. State Department hosts to enter conference proceedings by a back door so as to avoid unwanted contact, understood implicitly the new and alarming willingness of their erstwhile superpower ally to throw them under the bus for the sake of a quixotic quest for "also ran" mention in history book chapters on Middle East "peacemaking."

Other Iranian neighbors also got the message of waning U.S. resolve. When Saudi King Abdullah walked into the Dec. 3 Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Doha, Qatar, hand-in-hand with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there was no mistaking the significance of the moment. The invitation to Ahmadinejad, the first foreign leader ever to be invited to a GCC summit, obviously came before the release of the U.S. Iran NIE, but Arab recognition of the new strong horse in the neighborhood clearly parallels dangerous recent decisions to seek nuclear programs of their own as well as large-scale purchases of conventional weapons.

Iran's first-ever invitation to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in mid-2007 likewise highlighted its rising stature in Central Asia as this ostensibly anti-terrorism regional security cooperative revealed its true anti-U.S. nature with a warm welcome for the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world. While American influence in the Russia-China dominated SCO has always been non-existent, the inclusion of the rising Shia power marked a distinct, in-your-face move to expand the group's anti-U.S. agenda.

With barely 12 months left in the Bush administration, the world community is adrift as the firm hand on the tiller of American foreign policy goes limp. The U.S.'s European allies are left bewildered in the unfamiliar position of greater skepticism about Iran's nuclear weapons program than the United States itself; even the usually tolerant International Atomic Energy Agency claims the U.S. Iran NIE goes too far in absolving Iran of pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program. China and Russia, which know perfectly well how advanced Iran's nuclear weapons program is (because they are among its primary suppliers), now move aggressively to solidify economic and energy relationships, while playing the spoilers' role with U.N. Security Council sanctions efforts. Less powerful regional neighbors calculate their chances as the United States seeks their backing against Iran but offers little of its own. Most worrisome of all is gauging the Israeli reaction to being left dangling as Iranian long-range missile tests and uranium enrichment programs permit no doubts about Tehran's intentions toward the Jewish state.

The failure of the Bush administration to lead creates an international instability that is far more dangerous to global security than the firm stance in support of freedom and democracy with which this president began his term. Rogue states and their terrorist affiliates thrive in a climate of uncertainty. In the absence of credible deterrence, their aggression only becomes bolder, making the ultimate showdown inevitably more violent. It is time for this president to demonstrate once again the resolve that characterized his post-9/11 management of American foreign policy. The security of the nation and world depend on it.

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Clare M. Lopez is a consultant for Middle East, counterterrorism, and WMD issues who speaks and publishes widely. She is the vice president of the Intelligence Summit, a non-profit educational forum, and staff lecturer at the CI Center.