From my favorite geopolitical thinker, Thomas Barnett: NPR : The Middle East and U.S. Policy
And then in a more salient, how the world views us sort of way, I really argue that the Bush post-presidency began, for all practical purposes, with Katrina in New Orleans, when the world basically found out the double message of the Bush administration which is they cant do that kind of stuff abroad effectively, and guess what? They cant really do it at home very effectively.