Now, Mr. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is frantically pursuing the creation of a Palestinian state she hopes will be run by a man with lifelong ties to terror – Yasir Arafat’s crony and right-hand man, Mahmood Abbas. In the process, she is: whitewashing his record and current conduct; euchring Israel into surrendering more territory to its enemies; and ignoring the virtual certainty that any land thus yielded will become yet another safe-haven for terror (as with South Lebanon and Gaza before it).

* Closing ‘Gitmo’: For years, President Bush has recognized the need for a U.S.-controlled facility outside the United States capable of securely incarcerating international terrorists. He refused to capitulate to the often-hysterical calls, both at home and abroad, for the closure of the irreplaceable prison complex used for this purpose and located Guantanamo Bay.

Now, according to the New York Times, Mr. Bush’s administration is poised to shut down Gitmo, transfer its remaining occupants to U.S. territory and extend to them expanded rights to counsel and consideration of their cases in civilian courts. It is unlikely that this action will earn “W.” any kudos from his critics. It will, however, make it more difficult and vastly more expensive to keep such detainees off the actual or propaganda battlefields of this war.

* Farewells to sovereignty: During his first term, Mr. Bush recognized the threat to U.S. sovereignty posed by unaccountable and generally hostile multinational organizations like the International Criminal Court. He went so far as to “unsign” the treaty that established that tribunal, rather than allow Americans to be subject to its prosecutions.

Now, President Bush is arguing in a case pending before the Supreme Court that the dictates of such tribunals must trump domestic law. He is also pressing the Senate to allow the U.S. to be subjected to a host of new tribunals authorized by yet another sovereignty-sapping multinational accord, the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

With the notable exception of Iraq – where George W. Bush has largely held firm in the face of relentless criticism, with ever-more-promising results – virtually every aspect, principle and objective of his security policy is being eviscerated on his watch. The problem is not merely that those adulterating his original Bush Doctrine by supplanting it with a 2.0 version will obliterate the common-sense and courageous approach made necessary in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. He will bequeath to his successor and his people a world made vastly more dangerous, not more stable, for his administration’s embrace of appeasement dressed up as “realism.”