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Originally Posted by Ustwo
The US had gone from something of a passive to an active player. The left saw 9/11 for the turning point it was, but fails to understand that it wasn't an excuse to further a personal agenda but a reason to focus on it to prevent such incidents in the future. We had 8 years of dodging issues and difficult decisions with Clinton, who seemed to have based his pendency on being personally liked, not on what was best for the long range interests of the country.
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I don't think you can blame Clinton for the passivity of foreign relations in the 90's. In Clinton's defense, George HW Bush was already heading in that direction after Gulf War I. After the victory, the State Department let the anti-Iraq alliance, which included some very key players in the region, evaporate. To his credit, it certainly opened a lot of doors that never would have been opened otherwise (Saudi Arabia, Jordan), but the opportunities open at the end were either never recognized or never seized.
Let's also remember that Congress, specifically the Republican controlled Congress of 1994, was hellbent on cutting government spending with the primary target being military spending. You could even make the arguement that the Republican cries for a balanced budget from the 1970's to the 1990's led to 9/11 because of the funding cuts to reach that balance under Clinton. It's not something that I particularly believe, but I'm sure that the arguement could be successfully made. I'll leave to someone like host to do the research, though.