Former Senator Gary Hart has an excellent op-ed in today's Boston Globe: Where is Bush Leading Us? We'll quote a little, but go read the whole thing.

....when the Bush administration decided to go after terrorism everywhere it fundamentally defined a new role for America in the world.

Iraq represented no immediate or unavoidable threat to the United States. We overthrew its government because key Bush administration officials convinced the president it was the next step in the war on terrorism. But they had decided Saddam Hussein must go a full decade before 9/11. The destruction of the World Trade towers, which Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, simply gave them the excuse to resurrect an old agenda.

But the war on terrorism is now the excuse for America to assume imperial powers and to employ those powers even when our traditional allies oppose our actions....All this has transpired in the space of a few months without congressional hearings or review, any comprehensive statement by the administration, serious editorial discussion, or public debate over this new foreign policy. Throughout American history major departures in foreign policy have been the occasion for lively, even contentious debate. This has not been the case as the war on terrorism morphed into the centerpiece of a new imperial foreign policy.

[Thanks to Eric at Hamster for the link.]