Afghanistan was the first target picked by the Bush administration in the war on terror, which at that time enjoyed the full support of the international community. The Taleban regime, which sheltered the man responsible for the attacks against the US, al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, was overrun, followed by a war on insurgents and the installation of the first democratically-elected president in 2004 and a representative parliament last year. Since then, the government of Afghanistan has been fighting for control of the country against vicious Taleban/al-Qaeda insurgents with the help of US-led multinational forces, which have recently handed over command to Nato. It is fair to say that the war in Afghanistan is a limited success in that it denies al-Qaeda a safe haven and keeps them on the run.

The war on Iraq in 2003 however, which toppled the country's dictator Saddam Hussein, was controversial from the start - even more so following the embarrassing admission by the Bush administration that the justification for the invasion of Iraq was based on inaccurate intelligence. Iraq's supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction and its links with international terrorists have been proven false.

Worse, the toppling of Saddam Hussein was followed by a high-intensity insurgency against the US military and its few remaining allies - not to mention ruthless terrorist attacks against civilians, and now the worst-case scenario of a full-blown civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis is inching toward reality. The democratically elected Iraqi government will likely depend on the presence of large US forces for its survival into the foreseeable future. Heavy casualties suffered by the US military over the past three and a half years and the prospect of its forces being bogged down in a hostile country have combined to make the Iraq engagement highly unpopular among the American public.

Five years on from the 9/11 attacks and much of the world still remembers the horror and pain inflicted on the victims and their loved ones on that faithful day. The international coalition that originally set out to combat terrorism however has become fragmented, mainly due to the US's unilateral approach in exercising its unparalleled military power in general, and inexcusable mistakes made by the Bush administration in particular. The series of blunders committed by the Bush Administration are long and glaring - from its wrongheaded decision to disband Iraq's army, to its failure to field overwhelming forces to nip the insurgency in the bud following the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Now the US must struggle hard to try to help the wobbly Iraqi government quell the insurgency, suppress terrorists who are using Iraq as a recruiting ground for global jihadists, and prevent outbreak of a civil war. Despite its mistakes, no one should wish for the US to fail in its mission in Iraq. It may be true that the Bush administration has squandered the goodwill and support of the international community, but the US's failure in Iraq will not make global terrorism any less of a problem to the rest of the world. It is undeniable that in some quarters cynicism has led to talk of the global war on terrorism having a hollow ring. As for the rest of the world, cynicism and disillusionment with the unilateral policies of the US must not be allowed to distract the international community from its vitally important role in helping to end terrorism in all of its forms. International players may yet be able to persuade the US to do the right thing.

If there are lessons for the US to learn from the past five years, they must centre on how to provide better leadership, based more on consultations with allies, as well as learning to display diplomatic savvy in working out a multilateral approach to deal with international problems.